


It Haunts

by allislaughter



Series: Wordplay: So Love Us Till Sunset [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Ghosts, Illustrations, M/M, Monsters, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Side Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23453677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allislaughter/pseuds/allislaughter
Summary: Sometimes things can be terrifying out in the Commonwealth. Sometimes those terrors aren't the usual sort of things one deals with but something a bit more supernatural.A non-canon side-story for the fanfiction The System is Rigged taking place at unknown points of time in which the squad seem to attract all sorts of ghosts and monsters and have what one could describe as "a bad time". May contain spoilers for The System is Rigged.
Relationships: Deacon (Fallout)/Original Male Character(s), Nick Valentine/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Wordplay: So Love Us Till Sunset [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901830
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	1. It Comes

**Author's Note:**

> Copied from The System is Rigged:
> 
> For full disclosure, I never actually played any of the Fallout games, but I experience them vicariously through my friend glowstickia (on AO3 and tumblr; follow her fallout blog @falloutglow) and so have her help in writing this story to be as canon compliant/in-character as I can, but in the end this is for my fun and self-indulgence, so if I get anything wrong that accidentally slips past Glow then, to be honest, I'm not all that worried about it.
> 
> Also: This fic takes place following Glow's playthrough with her original character, Samara "Echo" Gray, who is not the Sole Survivor in her version of the story but is still the one to take on the Sole Survivor's role. Glow has plans to write Echo's story, so some things that happen in this fic might contradict future fics from Glow.
> 
> Unless otherwise noted, assume all chapters were written with Glow's help. Echo is Glow's OC, and other OCs of hers might pop up and will be noted appropriately. All other OCs, including Rig Miller, are mine unless otherwise noted. Tags will be added as appropriate/thought of, and please let me know if you feel it needs to be tagged in a certain manner I haven't thought of. Thank you, and enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rig listens to the radio while waiting for the Echo, Nick, and Deacon to come back. Something decides to follow him through the fog.

With camp set up in the early dusk, Rig sits in discomfort as he watches Echo fish through her bag. He knows what she’s searching for... And he’s not too excited for it...

“Here we go,” she says, pulling out an all too familiar, albeit still broken Pip-Boy. “Alright,” she starts as she goes up to Rig. “I need the bag space, so you need to wear this tonight.”

Rig grimaces but holds out his wrist anyway. She slaps it on him like a one-sided handcuff and he looks up at her pleadingly.

“Don’t give me that,” she says. “It’s just one night. Nick and I are going to be back in the morning and then you can take it off. Besides, if you sleep tonight, you won’t even notice it.”

“But...” Rig starts.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “Deacon will be here to watch you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Deacon says. “Babysitting duty. You know, you two could take a turn watching Rig more often...”

“We could,” Nick agrees. He smirks. “But you do such a good job of it.”

“ _Sure_ ,” Deacon says. “That’s obviously what it is.”

“See you tomorrow morning,” Echo says. She goes to Nick’s side, links her arm with his, and the two of them walk off into the night.

“Them and their dates,” Deacon says, shaking his head. “Anyway, Rigbert, it’s your bedtime.”

Rig frowns. “I’m 35.”

“And you’re not going to sleep if we don’t tell you to sleep,” Deacon chuckles. “Go on. We got you a nice blanket and a pillow and everything.”

Rig sighs.

Deacon laughs. “And you’re the one saying you’re 35...” He reaches into a bag and pulls out a teddy bear with sunglasses on. “And we’ve got you Lil’ Deacon too. You know you’re lucky, right? I don’t trust just anyone with my _son_.”

“I love him,” Rig says, taking the bear. “Thank you...” He climbs into his makeshift bed and curls up to sleep. He shifts a few times, trying to get comfortable with the Pip-Boy on his wrist again... Just until morning, he tells himself as he slips into unconsciousness. Then he can take it off again...

Only two seconds later, he wakes up to someone gently nudging his shoulder.

“Rigs,” Deacon whispers. “I’ll be right back. Nick and Echo are taking their sweet time, so I’m going to see if Echo got them lost again.”

Rig grumbles something and waves Deacon away. It’s been like two seconds. Let him sleep.

...Only two more seconds later, a sound startles Rig out of his sleep, and he sits up to locate it. He blinks and checks his Pip-Boy for the time—no wait, it’s still broken and flashing midnight... But the thick fog around him tells him enough, he thinks. It’s morning, and the impenetrable clouds around him hides loneliness and silence...

He doesn’t even have Lil’ Deacon for company... And he’s never been too fond of silence...

...There’s a radio on his Pip-Boy. It’s one of the things Deacon had told him is broken, but he never tested it for himself... He reaches for the dial and switches to the radio. No sound... He works his way through frequencies. Nothing. No sound. Just his breathing and heartbeat in his ears... He’s alone— Or is he? The fog is too dense. He wouldn’t know if something is hiding in it... But he can’t go anywhere. The others wouldn’t be able to find him if he moves. That is, assuming the others are coming back for—

“ _H-Hello...?_ ”

Rig jumps but then looks down at his Pip-Boy. That’s...?

“ _I don’t know if anyone will hear this. But— Oh god— Listen._ ” Rig stiffens and hovers his hand over the dial to switch the radio off. “ ** _Listen_** _. If you value your life. Stay out of the fog. Do you hear me? It comes... It_ **_comes_** _. It’s in the fog and it will— Wait— No! No! NO!_ ”

Rig grimaces at the sickening _crunch_ the plays, followed by static. That’s not... anything he wants to hear right now... His hand shakes as he reaches for the dial again.

“ _H-Hello...?_ ”

There’s a sound from somewhere in the fog. Rig jumps to his feet and tries to find where the sound came from.

“ _I don’t know if anyone will hear this. But— Oh god— Listen._ ”

He’s listening. He’s _listening_. Was that a scream or is he imagining things?

“ ** _Listen_** **.** _If you value your life. Stay out of the fog._ ”

That sounds like breathing... That’s _breathing_.

 _“Do you hear me? It comes. It_ **_comes._** ”

Rig smacks his Pip-Boy, trying to find the dial without looking, trying to keep his eyes peeled for whatever _it_ is.

“ _It’s in the fog and it will— Wait— No! No! NO!_ ”

The _crunch_ plays again before Rig manages to turn off the message. Whatever that was... He holds his arms, shaking in the chill of the fog, and trying to figure out what could be there.

There’s a sound behind him. He freezes, too terrified to turn around.

“ _Boo._ ”

Rig whips around, swinging his arm out and flinching his Pip-Boy makes contact with something _hard_. He stumbles back and falls to the ground, breathing heavily and tears streaming down his face.

“ _Ow!_ ” Deacon pulls off the helmet he had on and feels the side of his head. “ _God_ , this is what protection is for— You better not have given me a concussion—” Deacon looks down at Rig and his eyes widen. He drops the helmet and turns around and grabs something from his pocket. He turns back around, sunglasses on, and crouches down next to Rig. “Hey— Hey, it’s okay. It was just a prank. There’s nothing in the fog coming to get you, Rigsby.”

Rig flinches when Deacon reaches for him. He curls in on himself and whimpers quietly.

“ _Right_ — No scary pranks. Got it. Damn, I really thought I could get away with it since I could trust you not to shoot and-or stab me...”

Rig glares.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Deacon lowers his voice. “Didn’t mean to freak you out like that. Really thought I could be all ‘BooOoo, I’m a ghooOooOst’, maybe you’d scream, and then we’d laugh after. You know. ‘Haha, Deacon, what a wonderful and harmless prank.’ I’m sorry.”

Rig sniffles and wipes his eyes. “How did...?” He points down at the Pip-Boy and its even more messed up screen. “How did you...?”

Deacon smiles, though it doesn’t seem very happy. “That, uh... _wasn’t_ me.”

“ ** _Deacon._** ”

Deacon shrieks and dives into Rig’s arms.

Nick and Echo emerge from the fog, and Deacon takes the time to peel himself off of Rig.

“ _Deacon_.” Echo reaches down for the helmet. “What did you—” She pauses for a second and then picks up the helmet and traces the dent. “ _Really?_ ” she deadpans.

Nick groans. “You snuck up on Rig, didn’t you?”

“Come oooon,” Deacon whines. “I apologized. Promised not to do it again and everything! Honest!”

“Pip-Boy’s more broken,” Rig says, holding up his wrist and looking at the screen random symbols in place of letters.

“Well, that’s not _my_ fault,” Deacon insists. He clears his throat and stands up. “Let’s just, uh... get out of the fog.”

Rig opens his mouth to question again what that transmission was. He closes it. He rather not know...

It’s not like he’s going to hear it again.

They start walking, at first deeper into the fog, and Rig jumps at every noise that growls at them in the distance.

“Did Deacon spook you that badly?” Nick asks.

“Ehn,” Rig shrugs. He’ll be fine. The fog clears as the sun rises higher, and they spend the rest of the day’s travel in clear weather. Nothing weird happens. No more weird transmissions. No unseen monsters. No one trying to pull mean pranks on him. He rests easy that night, with Lil’ Deacon sitting next to his head to protect him. He’ll be safe.

“...H-Hello?”

...Rig hears the voice but doesn’t quite see where it’s coming from. He turns about the dark hall and sees a light in the distance and shadows flickering on the wall opposite the open door. He treks his way closer...

“I don’t know if anyone will hear this. But— Oh god— Listen.” 

He’s almost at the door... The shadows become clearer. Long and vaguely human, but shadows are deceiving...

“ _Listen_. If you value your life. Stay out of the fog.”

He peers into the room. He sees a man in torn clothes, covered in sweat, dirt... and blood...

“Do you hear me?” the man asks, gesturing wildly to no one. “It comes... It _comes_.”

Rig’s eyes dart down to the fog creeping into the room. A sense of dread runs through him. He ducks away from the open door. He watches the shadows, seeing another figure, a bit _less_ human, form...

“It’s in the fog and it will—” The man’s shadow notices the other figure. “Wait— No! No! NO!”

Rig looks away before whatever happens that causes that sickening _crunch_. He looks up and backs away from the room, watching for whatever monster might creep out to kill him. His head spins... Everything gets foggy... He hears something behind him.

He turns and sees a man, or so he thinks. He sees a figure with a face that glows and stutters through static that only gets more chaotic the longer he stares. The figure disappears.

“ _It comes_...” the voice whispers. “ _It comes. It comes_.”

Rig turns to escape it. Something moves in the shadows... Something lets out a shrill _hiss_ and leaps out at him.

He wakes with a small shout and covers a hand over his mouth as he bolts straight up. Echo mumbles something but doesn’t move from her spot. Deacon turns over to look at him. Nick looks at him from where he’s sitting, tightening a screw on his hand.

“Nightmare?” Nick whispers.

Rig keeps his hand over his mouth and nods.

“You remember what about...?”

He shakes his head. He gets up and heads to the door.

“Don’t go too far,” Nick says. “I don’t want to go after you and save you from ferals or something.”

Rig waves and dips out of the room into the night. He goes up to a nearby tree and leans against it, trying to steady his breathing. His nightmare is already fading from his mind, but the fear he felt lingers in his body, making it ache and leaving him tired. He closes his eyes, for just a moment, and opens them again when he hears a noise behind him...

...There’s fog again. He blinks and looks around. There’s fog all around him. He can’t see where their shelter is... He heads back the direction he remembers it being. He should be getting clo—

He steps onto the edge of an incline and trips, falling and tumbling down until he stops in a puddle of stagnant water. He grimaces and stands up— Good, he can still stand. He shakes the water off and wrings out his shirts. He looks up the incline and tries to climb back up, but he slides down into the water again, splashing it everywhere.

“Really?” he groans. He looks around—it’s foggy down here too—and he needs to get back up somehow...

“ _Rig... Rigsby..._ ”

He perks up, looking around. “Hello?” he asks.

“ _It comes... It comes..._ ”

He frowns again. “Deacon...?” His voice cracks a bit, and he holds his throat. “You said you wouldn’t do the— buh— you wouldn’t do a scare prank...”

“ _It comes, Rig... It comes..._ ”

He scans the fog. He sees the silhouette of a figure forming in the mist. He blinks and squints. It’s vaguely human shaped...

“ _It comes for you..._ ”

He tenses. The figure gets closer. Starts to look _very not human_. Hissing, snarling, like a feral creature drooling and writhing unnaturally. His heart races, pounding in his chest and in his ears...

Something reaches out of the fog. A rotting arm with too many fingers, and much too big.

He bolts, running into the unknown as the creature shrieks and pounds the ground to chase after him.

Not Deacon. _Not Deacon_. That is _not Deacon_ and he is going to _die_ in a way he _definitely did not want to die_. Mirelurks? Sure. Deathclaws? Absolutely. _Whatever this monster is?_ NO. NO. _NO._

Something curls around his ankle, and he slams against the grab, hitting his jaw and biting his tongue. He hisses in pain and spits—no blood—and then wipes his mouth on his wrist. He looks back to see a hand gripping his leg. He breathes in sharply and kicks at it. It lets go—vanishes into the ether, but it’s too late. The monster looms over him, fleshy, gross, like an amalgamation of body parts from creatures not of this world.

“ _It comes..._ ”

It’s _right over him_ , you insufferable ghost.

 _“It comes..._ ”

The monster reaches out. He can’t go anywhere. He closes his eyes and covers his face with his arms.

“ _It—_ ”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Rig growls, scowling. “You’re just a _ghost_. If you— If you actually wanted to kill me you would have done it by now. You— Buh— You’re a _jerk_ and you need to leave me _alone_.” He shifts to bring his legs closer to his body, wincing from the strain, but keeping his eyes closed so as not to see the monster-ghost-thing-whatever. “Go _away_. I don’t want you in my _life_.”

Everything’s nearly silent... Just his heavy breathing, a ringing in his ears, the occasional wince as he moves and feels the aches in his body all over again.

“Heeeey!” someone shouts in the distance. Someone familiar. “I found him!”

Rig risks an eye open, and looks up to see everything clear, the sun shining overhead, no monsters around, and the others hurrying up to him.

“Didn’t I say not to wander too far?” Nick says, immediately kneeling to check on him. “God, you’re a mess. What happened?”

“A stupid jerk ghost,” Rig says.

Echo winces. “Ooh, you too?”

“Mine was a fog monster,” Rig shrugs. “Told it to go away.”

“What?” Deacon wrinkles his nose. “And that _worked?_ ”

Rig stares up at him. “Ghost rules,” he says. “If you tell it to go away, it has to go away.”

“That’s not how—” Echo shakes her head. “Bokay. Okay. ”

Nick helps Rig up. “You look like something Dogmeat dragged in. Can you walk?”

Rig stumbles forward and holds his side. “Uh... Kinda.”

Deacon grins. “Well, if you need a stimpak—”

“Nope, nope, nope.” Rig stands straight and jogs off. “Nope, nope, nope.”

“Works every time,” Deacon chuckles.

Echo frowns. “That ghost will come back if we stay here long enough for it to get foggy again,” she announces. She looks down at the handprints in the mud, particularly the one with _too many_ fingers. “ _We need to go_.”

They catch up with Rig who slows down to walk with them. Another day’s travel, another stop for the night, this time without weird nightmares... It must have worked, Rig thinks. Telling the ghost-monster off. But the fog rolls in, yet again, in the early morning, _right_ when the group gets attacked by someone shooting at them from the distance. Nick and Echo go to deal with it, leaving Deacon to shove Rig into the safety of an old building.

“Huh.” Deacon reads the banner across the wall opposite the entrance. “‘Science! The Path to a Brighter Future!’ Cute.”

“Mm.” Rig glances out the front windows at the cloudy world outside. Third day of fog in a row... He’s only freshly clean and bruised from the monster attacking him the day before...

Deacon watches his gaze. “Well, hey,” he grins. “At least we’re out of the fog, right? We’re safe inside.”

Rig hums and looks around the foyer. There’s a door to the front offices, one hallway filled with rubble... The opposite hallway... Dark, quiet... familiar... He squints and starts down it.

“Rig— Rigsby.” Deacon walks after him. “Just to remind you, sometimes these places have _traps_ or _other occupants_ you don’t want to run into? Remember that lesson?”

Rig glances at Deacon and then continues to an open door. He listens for a moment. Nothing... He peers around the corner and flinches.

A radio and long forgotten microphone on the dusty table... A skeleton with broken bones lying haphazardly on the ground. As if something crushed whoever that was. He backs away, landing against a solid form, and he spins on his heel and backs away.

“Still just me,” Deacon says. He smiles. “What spooked you this time?”

Rig looks at the room and then steps to the side to let Deacon pass. He goes off to the side and busies himself reading old posters on the bulletin board while Deacon looks into the room at the skeleton and hums.

“Ah, a classic sight in the wasteland,” Deacon muses. 

Hmm, Safety Saturday is cancelled. How unfortunate.

“Here we see the skeleton in its natural habitat. Resting after a long day at work, being dead.”

Friday’s meeting on time travel moved to Wednesday last week. Good to know.

“Sedentary, it lies perfectly still in hopes of attracting a mate.”

Test subjects needed for observing the effects of an experimental gaseous application of— he’s not going to try and read that word. Some kind of drug.

“Such marvelous creatures. It— Hnn.”

Rig glances over his shoulder and sees Deacon walk _into_ the room. He opens his mouth to say something but closes it and watches instead as Deacon goes up the radio and turns it on. It crackles with static and hums through pops as he messes with the frequency.

“ _H-Hello...?_ ”

Rig shrinks in on himself.

“ _I don’t know if anyone will hear this. But— Oh god— Listen_.”

Not this time. Rig hurries in and turns off the radio. “Let’s _not_ ,” he says. He grabs Deacon by the hand and pulls him out of the room.

“Aww, but it was just getting good,” Deacon laughs. “Don’t you like radio plays, Rigsby?”

Rig averts his eyes and lets go of Deacon’s hand. “Not a fan of horror,” he says.

“Should have thought of that before you got yourself haunted by a ghost.”

Rig looks back at Deacon, confusion forming on his face. “What...?”

Deacon grins at him and pats his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s see if this place has anything cool in it.”

Rig blinks, but he lets Deacon grab his hand and pull him along. “Um... You feeling okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Deacon asks, not looking back at him as he leads him down the hall.

“...Tax frogs.”

“...How about we stop talking if we’re just going to say nonsense, huh?”

Rig puffs his cheeks and pulls his hand back, but Deacon holds on tighter.

“No, sorry,” Deacon says, looking back with a charming smile. “I’m kidding. Love your nonsense. Go on. Say more stupid shit.”

Rig opens his mouth but then closes it again and shakes his head.

“That’s fine too.” Deacon looks ahead and points. “Oooh, let’s see what’s behind Door Number _115_ , shall we?”

Deacon throws the door open and walks in without any caution. Rig follows in, still being pulled along like a heavy balloon. Deacon finally lets go of his hand and walks along the side wall. Rig looks around. A lab of some sort...

Rig walks up to the counter, gently tracing his hand in a swirl in the dust. He looks at his hand and frowns, noticing the slight reddish brown from the dust on his fingers... He wipes his hand on his pants and looks up at a nearby cabinet and at what looks like a children’s drawing taped to the side...

He plucks the drawing down and looks at a picture of a fleshy creature with badly proportioned limbs and too many fingers on its many hands... He eyes the black crayon in the corner reading “IT COMES.”

“Dea— Deacon...?” Rig turns his head but can’t look away from the drawing. “I don’t want to be here... Can we leave and find the others...?”

“Mmm, not yet,” Deacon sing-songs.

“What?” Rig looks up and sees another drawing. A more professional one. He pulls that down. An adult’s rendering of the child’s monster. A black and white version of what he saw out in the fog. “Why not?” Rig asks in a poor mimic of Deacon’s tone. He flinches at a _psst_ of some sort of air pressure changing. There are three more _pssts_ and none of them comforting.

He looks down and drops the drawings and backs away. The drawings disappear into a sudden fog filling the lab. “Deacon?” he asks, turning and trying to find Deacon in the fog of the lab. “What did you do...?”

“Oh, _you_ know,” Deacon’s voice says to his left.

Rig looks to the left and takes a step in that direction.

“Fog,” Deacon says to the right, and Rig moves in that direction. “Value your life. Stay out of it... Ironic, isn’t it? The _warning_ is what _doomed_ you...”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Rig asks. He freezes at the sound of something stepping up behind him.

“Come on, Rigsby,” Deacon laughs, _right_ behind Rig, breath on his neck, hands on the sides of his shoulders to hold him in place. “Be a _pal_ . Let _it_ come and kill _you_ . And then I can go free and tiptoe my fancy little way into the afterlife while _you_ take my place.”

“Deacon,” Rig squeaks. “This isn’t funny! You said you wouldn’t do pranks like this anymore!”

“ _Who said this is a prank?_ ”

Rig twists around and smacks his hand across Deacon’s face, sending Deacon’s sunglasses flying. He flinches and pulls back, an apology about to escape his lips before he sees...

Deacon’s eyes...

Full of a glowing, flickering static.

“Deacon” rubs the side of his head and frowns. “Really?” he asks. “You know that’s not going to help you when _it_ comes, right?”

Rig backs away. “Deacon” matches his steps. Something growls on the other side of the room and looms in the shadows and fog.

“You’re so stupid, you know that?” the ghost or whatever it is possessing Deacon insists. “It really shouldn’t have been so easy to pull you in here.” He takes on a mocking voice. “‘Oh, Deacon, I blindly trust you even though you contradicted yourself _twice_ because I’m Rigsby and I—’ What, love me?” He laughs, eyes flashing to gray and then back to glowing static. “God, can you imagine? You’re just some sweaty, useless _idiot_ .” He motions back at the monster as it grows bigger. “Just _die_ already. Save us both the trouble.”

Rig backs into a pipe and a valve that digs into his back and leaks something onto it. He pushes off of it, getting the liquid onto his fingers. A smell hits his nose.

The same as the stagnant water from when he first saw this monster...?

...The monster is suddenly clearer, isn’t it?

_Is this a hallucination, are you kidding?_

“Rig!” Not-Deacon waves at him. “Listen to me when I’m insulting you. I don’t get to do this often enough and I want to enjoy it before you die.”

“Haven’t yet,” Rig says. “Monster ain’t real.”

Not-Deacon laughs, tapping the tips of his fingers against his head. “Not real.” He pulls his hand away and scowls. “What do you _mean_ not real? It killed me.” The static in his eyes flashes wildly. “ _It was here and killed me_.”

“...Oh, _you’re_ real,” Rig hums. “Weird. Monster ain’t. We’re high.” He swipes a hand in the fog. “Hallucin— Hallucio— Genetic structures of the brain allows for chemical reactions that produce false information in the form of image and sound—”

“You don’t know actual science, do you?” Not-Deacon demands with another flash of gray eyes between static. 

Rig shrugs. He looks at the monster, growing more real the more he stands in this fog. More grotesque, waiting, grinning at him as if it knows he plans to walk through it.

He shrinks a bit... The monster looks like the drawings... _He saw the monster before he saw the drawings_...

“Why don’t you test it, then?” Not-Deacon grabs Rig and forces him forward. Rig digs his heels into the slick tile, but Not-Deacon just slides him across. “If you’re soooo certain it’s not real. Just go up to it. Pet it even. Give it a _hug_.”

Rig’s words catch in his throat. He tries to escape, tries to run to the side, but Not-Deacon catches him and pulls him back. “Deacon,” he whispers. He grabs onto Deacon’s shirt. The monster reaches out for him. “Deacon, _please_ , this isn’t funny— This— This is— _fuck_.”

Deacon spins Rig around and looks him in the eye. With his normal, gray eyes. “Oh my _god_ , you just said the _fuck_ word.”

Rig points at the monster. “ _I hate this guy_.”

Deacon looks up. “ _Oh fuck!_ ” He throws Rig back to the opposite corner, and Rig falls and slides across the ground. Deacon slides after him and lands right next to him with a bit more grace and a gun drawn. “Get up and turn off the valves! Get rid of the fog!”

Rig grabs a pipe and uses it to pull himself up, and he finds the first valve and shuts it off. As he works, Deacon shoots at the monster which screams and slams its hands into the ground and drags itself closer. It recoils as it loses a limb and screams louder.

Rig starts crying and whines in terror as he gets the last valve. The fog stays in the room.

“Uhhh, got a Plan B?” Deacon asks.

 _Plan A was_ **_Deacon’s_ ** _idea_. Rig tries to remember how science labs work. There should be a— A vent somewhere— Some way to get the fog out of the room.

The door out of the room opens and the fog leaks out. That works.

“Holy—!” Nick’s voice shouts, followed by Echo’s cry of “ _Shit!_ ”

“Nick! Echo!” Deacon yells. “Could use some back-up here!”

The monster screams yet again, Rig slips to the ground and covers his ears, screwing his eyes shut as the others attack the monster.

A century later— probably just a few minutes— the sounds stop. Rig peeks an eye open. The fog’s gone. There’s monster blood, guts, and limbs everywhere. Absolutely everyone looks terrified and unhappy.

Rig looks at Deacon who looks back at him and then avoids his gaze. With the glasses off, it’s suddenly easy to see how scared and tired he looks.

“Are you two coming or not?” Nick snaps, perhaps a bit harsher than he intends.

“Yeah, we’re coming.” Deacon gets up and looks at Rig. He holds out a hand and Rig stares at it and then accepts the help up. “Did you see where my...?” He glances down and sees a lone pair of sunglasses half-buried under monster guts. “Ergh. Echooo?”

“I have spares,” she says between heavy breaths of her own.

None of them say another word as they exit the building.

Camp afterwards is in the safety of a clear day with no fog around, but no less tense. Rig watches Deacon in the sunlight with Deacon’s lack of sunglasses and nervous look...

“You look weird,” he says.

Deacon squints up at him. “Oh, thanks.”

“You don’t have the eyes I’m used to,” Rig says, pointing at his own. “No shades. Nicer than static, at least.”

Echo gives a sarcastic laugh as she digs out sunglasses. She passes them to Deacon and then heads over to Nick’s side. Deacon inspects the glasses, mumbles something about picking up his spares, and puts them on. He stands up.

“Going for a walk,” he announces.

“Deacon,” Nick says, but Deacon storms off. He sighs and looks at Rig. “Well?”

Rig looks at anything besides Nick. “Got possessed by a radio ghost and tried to sacrifice me to a fog monster and only snapped out of it because I said—” He lowers his voice. “Fuck.”

Nick gives him a look. “You’re a grown man. You’re allowed to say ‘fuck.’”

“We’re allowed to say fuck?” Echo asks.

“Don’t you start,” Nick sighs.

“Is he going to be okay?” Rig asks.

Nick and Echo share a look—or so Rig has to assume with Echo’s eyes hidden behind her own shades. “Sure, totally, of course,” they both lie, flat out, to his face.

He slumps and then lets himself lie down on the ground. “Everything is candy terror sugar die.”

“What?” Nick squints.

Echo sighs and then stands up. “I should probably talk to him. It’ll be alright, Rig. You stay here with Nick.” She heads off after Deacon.

Nick watches her go and then looks at Rig drawing spirals in the dirt. “Are, uh... _you_ going to be alright?”

“Dunno,” Rig says. “Never got attacked by a ghost possessing someone I like trying to feed me to a monster before...” He sighs and closes his eyes. “I’m tired. Gonna sleep here.”

“...Fair enough.” Nick takes out a cigarette and his lighter. “This has been a weird few days... We need a break.”

“Mm. Night.”

“Sleep well.”


	2. It Watches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While trapped inside a random home by the rain one night, Rig finds an old drawing of a monster. Things get a bit nightmarish after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has art! The two child's drawings are provided by AO3 user glowstickia. Follow her on tumblr at glowstickia or on her Fallout blog at falloutglow.

_Rusted railroads leading to worlds long dead_ _  
_ _Radiated rain - how the sky bled_ _  
_ _Resting with a battle in my head_ _  
_ _Rueful of the thoughts to nightmares wed_

“Guess who found _Nuka-Cola!”_ Deacon shouts from the next room, disturbing Rig from his thoughts. Deacon walks back in carrying three bottles and tosses one to Echo and sets a second on Rig’s table before plopping down on a dusty couch with his own.

Rig makes a face at the drink and ignores it. Never was a fan of cola...

Nick works on tightening a loose screw in his wrist and glances out the dirty, cracked window at the rain pouring in the dark night outside. “Well, that’s probably going to keep us stuck here the rest of the night.”

“Is it time for ghost stories and roasting marshmallows yet?” Deacon asks.

Echo grins. “If you want a ghost story—”

“You’re not telling the Dunwich Borers one _again_ ,” Deacon interjects. “You’ll freak out Rig.”

“Oh, I have _way_ more stories than just _that_.”

Deacon shudders. “Ugh, you just _have_ to attract _ghosts_. Why couldn’t it be something wholesome, like attracting bloatflies or super mutants?”

“If we’re telling ghost stories, it’ll freak me out regardless,” Rig says. He wrinkles his nose and shifts in his seat. “Overactive imagination. Bees and buttons.”

“Bees and buttons,” Nick repeats, squinting at him. “What was that one supposed to mean?”

“Something’s _poking_ me,” Rig says. He gets up and pats the seat cushion. “There’s some sorta...” He flinches at a small _crinkle_ from under his hand. “Hmm...” He slides his finger along the seam of the cushion and finds a zipper. He unzips the cover and shoves his hand in.

“Uhhh, Rig?” Deacon asks. “You want to be more cautious there, bud?”

Rig pulls out a piece of paper and squints at it. “Children’s drawing,” he says. “Some kinda monster.” He hands it to Nick to see.

Nick sets aside the screwdriver and takes the drawing. A black, weirdly shaped blob, angry red eyes, and a mouthful of fangs. “Some kind of... shadow octopus?”

Rig zips the cushion back up and climbs back into his chair and then cranes his neck to see the drawing again. “Mm, no, six limbs. It’s an arachnid.”

“Wouldn’t that be eight legs?” Echo asks. She looks at the drawing when Nick holds it up for her and Deacon to see.

“Scorpion tail,” Rig says.

“Looks more like a cat tail to me,” Deacon says.

“Opossum,” Rig says.

“Okay, what are _you_ seeing?” Nick asks. He sets the drawing down and motions to Rig’s journal. “You’ve got me curious now.”

“Oh...” Rig flips to a blank page and starts to sketch out the creature in the drawing.

Echo sips her cola. “You know, if this is another monster that you’re attracting, Rig...”

“Monsters think I’m cute and easy prey,” Rig says. He glances up at Nick and then down at the child’s drawing. “S’not the first time I’ve buh— bunny slide.”

“...” Echo sighs. “When was the _last_ time you slept?”

“...Define _sleep_.”

“ _Rig._ ”

“I got a nap earlier when we were at that one settlement.”

“That was _yesterday_.”

“Then I slept yesterday,” Rig pouts. “I’m— Fuh. I’m _trying_. S’not my fault I can’t— can’t bleep.”

“That’s because you don’t use naughty fuck words,” Deacon says. “Nothing to censor out.”

Rig furrows his brow and finishes his sketch. He turns it around and shows Nick. A fuzzy creature with a opossum face, jointed legs like an inaccurate spider, and a scorpion tail, complete with a stick-figure Nick for size reference. The scorpiderossum stands 6 feet tall from the base of the ground to the top of its head with his tail hanging another 2 feet above it, with the monster about 8 feet long....

Nick stares at the sketch and then gives Rig a look.

“What?” Rig asks.

“You really _do_ have an overactive imagination if you got all that from this drawing.”

Rig frowns and tucks the child’s drawing into his journal and closes it. “Why would I lie about that...? That’s such a weir— weird thing to lie about. You think I just say the things that pop into my brain space?” He rolls his pen back and forth on the table and then looks up to see the others staring at him. “That was... jokes...”

The silence only gets more awkward, and Rig looks down at his closed journal right when Deacon breaks the silence with some joke that Rig tunes out. Rig ignores the conversation that picks up and cracks open his book again to peek at the drawings.

The eyes seem to glow at him in the shadows of the pages. He slams it shut and grabs his Nuka-Cola.

“What?” Echo asks him.

“Blue gun,” Rig says. He uses his flamingo shirt to get leverage on the bottle cap and twists it off. “Like a glue gun, but blue. Just.” He chugs down half the bottle and then sets the bottle down and turns his head to wipe his lips on the back of his wrist. “ _Bad_. Ew. _Hate_ cola...” He toys with the bottle cap in his hand, thumbing the ridges and letting the sharp points anchor him to reality. “It’s... delirium hour, starring your favorite idiot, I saw little glowing things in the drawings, am I going to die?”

“Ah,” Deacon muses. “Wasteland madness has finally set in. Sorry, Rigsby, you only have three days to live.”

“Awww,” Rig whines. “I wanted to be killed by mirelurks.”

Deacon grins and waggles his eyebrows. “Who said you won’t be?”

Rig gasps. “My dreams _could_ come true!”

Nick drops his face into his hand and Echo shakes her head at the two of them.

“You don’t have wasteland madness,” Echo says. “You’ll know you have that when you start seeing pink and orange spots everywhere.”

“Echo...” Nick groans softly.

“ _Right_ ,” Deacon agrees. “Forgot about that symptom. What do you diagnose then, Dr. Echo?”

“ _Sleep deprivation_ ,” Echo scowls, sending as pointed a look at Rig as she can behind her sunglasses. “Ya need to sleep, boy.”

Rig blinks and then slowly lifts the Nuka-Cola bottle again and tips it at his lips. Some of the liquid dribbles down his chin instead of going into his mouth as he enters a staring contest with Echo that he already lost since he can’t see her eyes. He at the least adjusts the soda to drink it properly and then sets the empty bottle down and gets up.

“Okayloveyou, goodnight,” he utters with a hasty retreat to the next room, leaving behind his journal and the three of them watching in various shades of amusement. He stands in the dark room, barely illuminated by what seeps in from the room the others are in. Just enough that he can see a bed with a certain teddy bear in sunglasses already waiting for him, as mysterious as this randomly appearing and disappearing bear is...

He licks his thumb and cleans off the soda on his chin as best as he can and then climbs onto the old, worn mattress with the newly familiar smell of dust and mildew, and he grabs hold of the bear and places it at his back to stand watch as he sleeps.

No monsters will get him tonight.

He closes his eyes, peeks them open as a red light passes by, but the room is dark as ever... He closes his eyes again and counts his sheep until he slips into the void of dreams.

Back with the others, Nick and Echo discuss various matters, such as when to pick up Dogmeat, where they’re headed next, when they should head out, Deacon what are you doing with Rig’s journal...

Deacon looks up, his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “Hey, it’s okay,” he insists. “Rig and I have an understanding. I snoop, and as long as he doesn’t know about it, it’s okay.”

Nick gives him a flat look. “Does he actually agree to this understanding or do you just pretend he does?”

“Yes,” Deacon replies. He opens the journal, ignoring the eyeroll Nick shares with Echo. “Relax, I just want to see that drawing. Believe it or not, it’s hard to see small black blobs from across the room.”

“Suuure,” Echo says. “That’s _all_ , right?” She frowns and stands. “Though... considering what happened with that ghost and fog monster...”

Deacon winces. “I thought we agreed never to bring that up again.”

“You weren’t you,” Echo says. “You didn’t hurt him.” She walks over and leans over the table without touching Deacon or the journal. “...How did Rig get _that_ from that drawing?”

“No clue,” Nick says. “That man’s a mystery I’m not sure I want to solve.”

“More fun that way, for sure,” Deacon mumbles. He picks up the child’s draw and hums. “Weird...”

“What?” Echo asks.

“Not sure,” Deacon says. “Feels like—”

There’s a crash against the far wall that causes them to jump. They fall silent, listening as there’s a sound of small squeaks and the scurrying of many tiny feet...

Nick joins the standing party and reaches to the gun at his hip. “So...” he says. “What are the chances that Echo was right about Rig attracting monsters...?”

“Think his flamingo shirt is cursed?” Deacon says. “Maybe go check on him.”

“You two stay safe,” Nick says.

“We’re just one room over,” Echo reminds. “We’ll... do our best,” she finishes, sharing a look with Deacon behind their shades.

Nick walks off into the next room, leaving Echo and Deacon behind with their empty bottles of Nuka-Cola, a child’s drawing, and an adult’s interpretation of said drawing... Deacon rubs the paper of the child’s drawing between his fingers.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he says. “This feels like it’s—” The paper shifts two ways at once, the old glue on it coming loose at last. “Folded over.”

“Ooh, boy,” Echo winces. “What we got...?”

Deacon unfolds the paper and holds it for them both to see.

An all black page with white scratch marks all over it. Lines all over in some kind of scenery that’s incomprehensible. What looks like eyes and a mouth and a bit of red around its teeth. Blood perhaps? Most jarringly.... “Its watching” says the left side of the page. “Stay Awake” says the right.

Echo grimaces. “So... If you were Rig, how would you interpret this drawing?”

Deacon winces. “So... these are the railroad tracks we’re near, right?”

“Mm.”

“And these are the.... Trees? Storm clouds and rain?”

“Mmmmmmmmm.”

“Aaaaand, this is... that weird monster thaaaat, uh... is watching us and... waiting for us to sleep?”

“MMMMMMM.”

“Hoo boy...”

Thunder rumbles, and the roof shakes. Deacon shoves the drawing into his pocket and immediately storms into the next room after Nick. Echo keeps to his heels, watching his back as they go.

“Valentine,” Deacon hisses. “Wake Rig up.”

“What?” Nick asks from where he’s standing, looming in the shadows with only the glow of his eyes visible like some kind of specter. “Why?”

“We’re in another ghost story,” Deacon says. He goes up to Rig and shakes Rig’s shoulder. “Rigsby. _Rigsby_.”

Rig doesn’t respond. Still breathing, but not waking.

“Dammit,” Deacon groans.

“What’s the monster this time?” Nick asks. “Besides that scorpion... opossum... _thing_.”

“No clue,” Echo answers. She turns her head to the window, to the railroad tracks in the distance and the trees on the other side. “It’s watching,” she whispers. “We have to stay awake.”

“Rig’s already asleep,” Nick says. He walks over and pats Rig’s cheek. “ _Rig_. Wake _up_.”

No response. Not even an attempt to shoo Nick’s hand away. Nick frowns and turns his gaze onto Echo still watching the window.

“Do you think the monster already...?” he trails off. “It’s not a ghost, is it?”

“Not this time,” Echo says. “But if it does have Rig already...” She shivers and Deacon follows suit. “Colder, huh...?”

Deacon lifts his shades and huffs out a breath. “That’s misting alright...” he says, putting his shades back in place. “We’re in for a long night...”

“We need to stay awake,” Echo says. “We need to try and wake Rig up. And if that monster shows up... We need to keep it from killing any of us...”

Deacon sits on the bed and pats Rig’s arm again. “Come on, bud... Don’t make us have to splash cold water on you...”

...Rig opens his eyes and sits up... He looks around the room, dazed and confused... Ah, he’s in his bedroom, he realizes, stumbling to his feet. There’s his books, there’s his magazines, there’s his little collection of knick-knacks. Just a normal day at home... Everything is as it should be.

He frowns, spying something in the corner of his eye. For a second, he sees a man with a face covered by static. Before he can say anything, the man disappears... Another faceless man takes his place.

He tenses. No. _No_ . Not him. Not again. Not _here_. “Go away,” he orders. The figure merely goes to his shelf and pokes at his knick-knacks. “No. _Stop_. Go _away_. You can’t _be_ here!”

The nightmare picks up one knick-knack. A small scorpion... with an opossum face...

“ _Stop_ ,” Rig begs, more desperate, more distressed. “I hate you— I _hate_ you. Leave me _alone!_ ”

The little creature in the nightmare’s hand grows bigger. Rig doesn’t notice...

Back in the waking world, Deacon lays out Rig on the sofa in the main room, making sure to tuck Lil’ Deacon in Rig’s arms. Echo paces behind him while Nick sits at Rig’s previous spot at the table, smoking a cigarette as he stares at the open journal and uncrumpled drawing from who knows how long ago.

“What was it last time?” Nick asks. “That weird flesh monster. What got that chasing Rig last time?”

“A radio transmission,” Deacon says. He sits on the ground in front of Rig, scowling as he stares out the window at the dark rain outside. “I only heard part of it, but...”

“It’s the drawing this time,” Echo says. “But what can we do? If we can’t wake Rig up... We have to stay awake tonight and hope that’s enough...”

“What if it isn’t?” Deacon asks. “If it’s some sort of... dream monster. What if Rig never wakes up?”

“Worry about that later,” Nick says. “There’s no use getting worked up over it now.”

Deacon groans and leans back against the couch. He shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out a lighter and grabs a cigarette. “This keeps happening, huh?” He nods back at Rig. “And he’s the one who doesn’t like horror stories.”

“Sleeping Beauty’s in one now,” Echo says. “Just need the thorns growing on the castle.”

Nick frowns. “Just need a prince to cut through the thorns and kiss the princess.”

“I’m not kissing him,” Deacon says.

Nick gives him a look. “Who said _you’d_ have to?”

Deacon busies himself smoking instead of answering.

Echo sighs and stops pacing. “Deacon, we’ve been over this. It’s not your fault you got possessed by a ghost that wanted to kill Rig.”

“He doesn’t even blame you for that,” Nick adds. “He knows it wasn’t you.”

Deacon doesn’t answer. Nick and Echo share a look.

“...Deeks?” Echo asks, tilting her head to look down at him. “How much of it _was_ you?”

Deacon shrugs. “It’s... stupid that he trusts me, y’know? The guy who can’t help but invade his privacy to read all the things he writes about us. The guy who he knows is lying about everything. He should know better.”

“You _are_ trustworthy, though,” Nick says. “You’ve helped save us dozens of times.”

“He really is a sweaty, useless idiot,” Deacon groans. “Those are things I actually think about him. That the ghost said for me.”

Echo frowns. “But...?” she prompts.

“Affectionately,” Deacon rushes to say. “He’s... y’know, like any other vaultie who’s never been out in the wastelands before. It’s _adorable_.”

“Then what’s the goddamn problem?” Nick demands. “You’re really going to sit around feeling sorry for yourself because you have someone who trusts you who clearly shouldn’t?”

“Nick!” Echo scolds.

Nick groans. “Sorry. Don’t know what got over me.” He taps his fingers on the table. “Deacon, look.” He extinguishes his cigarette and leans forward over the table. “We’re going to figure this out and wake Rig up. Just be honest for once in your life and tell him— Whoa, that’s... Hmm.”

“...Nick?” Echo asks, taking a step close to him.

“Nothing,” Nick says, gripping the table as if it’s definitely _not_ nothing. “My internal clock just... stopped, that’s all. It’s...”

Nick collapses onto the table, and Echo shouts and rushes to his side.

“Nick! Nick, wake up!”

Deacon breathes in sharply and stands. “ _He_ fell asleep? But he’s the only one of us who should have been able to stay awake!” He glances down to Echo’s Pip-Boy. “...Bullseye, what time is it?”

Echo looks to Deacon and then checks the time. “...That’s not right. I last checked the time like ten minutes ago... My clock stopped too.”

“ _Dammit_ ,” Deacon spits out. “Now what? What do we do?”

“We’ll think of something,” Echo assures. “But _what?_ ”

They both jump and hold their breaths at the sound of a _hissss_ and a quiet skittering joining the pattering of raindrops on the roof...

_Hssssss..._

Rig stops at the sound, stops and notices his bedroom door is closed.

That’s not right.

He can never close his door in his nightmares. He can never get the privacy he wants—

_Hssssss....._

He doesn’t look back and instead walks to the door. If this is real, then _that man_ being there means _he_ has to leave. And if it’s not real...

He throws open the door and steps through to a cityscape, black and white and shades of gray.

...Well, then, he’s in _this_ kind of weirdness, he supposes.

The cars drive by on otherwise quiet, evening streets, minding their business and heading to their final destinations. A shoot-out in the distance, typical for a large city. It’s not raining, but everything feels like a storm.

Nick Valentine holds onto his fiancee as she lies dying in his arms. Jenni— Echo, whose breathing is shallow and who is bleeding out onto the pavement. Nick can’t handle the sight, but he’s frozen in place. Unable to do anything and angry at himself for that, at the world for doing this to them, at—

“Niiiick?” a nervous voice asks. “What are you doing...?”

Nick looks up at the face of a man with less sense than his already limited style. A man who has the moxie to wear an ugly flamingo shirt but no tact in confronting someone clearly—

“Why are you narrating things like that?” Rig asks. “Just talk like a normal person.” He pouts. “And my shirt isn’t ugly.”

“What?” Nick asks.

“You— You know this is a dream, right?” Rig shuffles closer. “Um... Most things aren’t shades of gray like this. There’s usually more color? Are you telling me you’re color blind?”

“ _What?_ ” Nick looks down at Jeni-cho and... That blood _does_ look weirdly gray... The woman disappears from his arms as he stands up and looks around at the world, colorless and... not quite the layout he remembers of Boston _or_ Chicago. “...I fell asleep,” he groans. “Somehow.”

Rig squints at him. “Is this a shared dream somehow...? Uh... How...? Would we be sharing a dream?”

Nick frowns. “ _Apparently_ there’s a monster watching us that’s trying to make us fall asleep to... who knows what.”

Rig shivers and rubs his arms. “Oh...? Uh...” He looks up, past Nick. “You— You mean like... whatever those red eyes behind you... are...?”

Nick spits out a curse and jumps away, right before a giant scorpion tail strikes the pavement where he had been standing. “Rig! _Run!_ ”

The two of them take off through the morphing city streets. The monster hisses and scurries after them.

_Hissss_

“It’s toying with us,” Deacon says. “It’s toying with us! It’s running around trying to make us terrified!”

“Is it working?” Echo asks, glasses off and eyes tired as she holds Nick’s unconscious hand.

“ _Yes,_ ” Deacon says. He groans and shakes his head. “What do we do? Some sort of... ghost... monster... whatever. What do we _do?_ What if they’re...?” He trails off and looks at Rig who shifts in discomfort, face contorted in pain. “Rigsby...?”

Rig doesn’t wake up. His grip on Lil’ Deacon tightens, clinging for life. 

Echo winces suddenly, and Deacon turns to see her tug her hand away from Nick’s when Nick’s locks tight into a fist, his own peeling face looking as pained as it can.

“They’re having nightmares,” Echo says.

“Shit,” Deacon grimaces. “We have to wake them up, but _how?_ ”

Echo darts her eyes down to the drawings on the table. “I... have an idea...”

Deacon turns to look at her. “What are you...? Wait— No, you don’t know what might—”

“It’ll be fine,” Echo says, standing to reach said drawings. “Once I know what to do, I can tell you, and then we can solve it.”

“Echo—”

Echo picks up the child’s drawing. Deacon watches her eyes turn a glowing white, shaking in the cold as he waits for her to come through the other side of her echo... Echo’s eyes flutter and then fall shut. Deacon gasps and catches her before she falls over. He picks her up and sets her in a nearby armchair and pulls out a cloth to wipe the blood from her nose.

“Bullseye?” he asks, weak and nervous.

She doesn’t wake up.

He’s alone with nothing he can do to help them on a night that won’t end...

He curses up a storm that rivals the wind howling outside.

The howling wind greets her as soon as she opens her eyes, and Echo knows almost instantly that this isn’t her usual kind of echo. She sees a small child drawing a monster on a folded piece of paper, and that’s enough of a hint. The fact that she’s still herself watching this memory and not seeing it from the child’s point of view.

She looks around. It’s the same room she had just been in, only differently arranged, cleaner paint on the walls, but still dark and cold... She gets up and walks up to the child who doesn’t seem to notice her...

The child looks up, and she breathes in through her teeth. Small child with completely red eyes. Not normal in the slightest. The child gets up and wanders to the dining table... They unzip one of the cushions on the chairs and hide the drawing.

“Time for bed!” a mother calls from the next room.

The child looks to the window, terror crossing their face.

“Time for _bed!_ ” the mother insists.

There’s a flash of some sort of creature that passes the window.

“Jan!” the mother calls one more time. “Go to bed!”

Jan scurries away. They turn their head towards Echo as they pass. They whisper a quiet, airy “it’s watching” before disappearing through the doorway.

“...Bokay,” Echo sighs. “Horror movie dream. I _get it_. But what do we do to _solve it?_ ”

“ _the monster was given form._ ”

“Fuuuuuuu—” Echo doesn’t turn around to face the asshole she knows is there.

“ _destroy that form, and the monster will cease to be._ ”

“Burn the drawings?” she suggests.

“ _yes._ ” A door clicks open. “ _but someone must be awake to do so..._ ”

She turns around in time to see the man before he disappears. A dark figure with static covering his face. He vanishes and instead she can see through the open door at a black and white city and two familiar people running from a giant creature, and she gasps.

“Nick!” she shouts, waving from the open doorway. “Rig! This way!”

“Echo!” Nick gasps before tearing off towards her.

Rig stumbles and follows suit, and the two of them dive in. The monster hisses and launches itself at the door, and Echo slams it shut, and they instead hear the _thud_ of the monster crashing against the door... And then the scratches of the monster trying to get in...

Nick throws his arms around Echo and holds her tight. “Thank god you’re alright.”

“For now, anyway,” Echo says, hugging him close. “I’m glad you’re alright too. You worried me when you passed out like that.”

“Everything’s in color again?” Rig asks. He pulls at his flamingo shirt. “Everything’s in color. Great.” He looks around. “Where’s... Deacon...?”

The monster slams at the door again. The three of them flinch.

“Right,” Echo says. “We need to find him. He’s probably here too, somewhere.” She glares at the door. “Not through _that_ door, though. Let’s try another one.”

“You lead,” Nick says. “I feel like you’d know your way around better than either of us.”

Rig opens his mouth but then closes it. He silently follows Echo and Nick through to the back of the house...

In the front of the house, Deacon paces around rubbing his arms from the cold air, talking to keep his teeth from chattering. “Come on, Deeks, there’s gotta be something you can do,” he utters. “You can’t be stuck— You can’t just sit around doing nothing while some monster eats your friends. _Think_. You can’t let them down again! You can’t _lose_ them.”

He groans and looks to Nick at the table, fists clenched so tightly the screws in his hands might snap. He looks to Echo in the armchair, with the dried blood on her upper lip, looking so unnatural without her sunglasses.

He does not look at Rig. He cannot look at Rig. He turns his back to the man on the couch and faces the door.

“What kind of coward am I?” he groans. “I can’t be honest when it matters and then I get possessed and some ghost tells him how I really feel? And I take almost too long to get that ghost _out_ of my _head?_ Why does anyone trust me? I can’t even trust myself. I’ve been lying for too long that I can’t even tell myself the truth...”

He pauses and then scowls. “Except I _am_ , right now, for some reason. The one time no one can hear it. What’s _wrong_ with me? Why am I like this? Why can’t I—?” He stops as something bangs at the door. “No...” he whispers. “No, no, no...”

The banging continues. Deacon backs away. It’s too late. The monster’s going to break in and he can’t protect everyone. Even if he kills it, it’ll probably hurt someone— maybe all of them— and then—

The door breaks open, and three figures stand in the doorway... Nick, Echo, and Rig...

“What the—?” Deacon looks from them to his unconscious friends who seem to have vanished. “ _Shit!_ I’m dreaming?”

“We all are,” Echo says, stepping into the room with the other two following. “Which is a _problem_. The monster’s here with us hunting us down.”

“And we’re all gathered up for an easy meal,” Deacon groans. “ _Great_.”

“One of us needs to wake up,” Nick says. “If one of us can wake up, we can burn the drawings and hopefully get rid of the monster for good.”

“Sure, okay,” Deacon says. “Any plans on how to _do_ that? If we’re all in here together?”

Echo furrows her brow. “Maybe pinching someone...? I don’t know. Normally I wake up from nightmares.”

“I haven’t had a dream in years,” Nick says. “Not as a synth, anyway. I don’t know what to do.”

“I didn’t even know I was asleep until just now!” Deacon groans. “Everything feels too real! How are any of us supposed to wake up?”

Rig stands to the side, listening to the three of them argue. Quiet, nervous, taking his time to think instead of just saying whatever comes to mind... Something needs to happen to... to startle one of them... in a way they wouldn’t expect... A joke? No, that wouldn’t go over well... And he doesn’t have the heart to be witty right now... He looks up at Deacon. Impulsive, however...

“What even _is_ this nightmare?” Deacon asks. “I’m telling the truth? That’s what I’m afraid of?”

“Makes sense,” Echo frowns. “ _And_ what else?”

“I don’t want to let you three down,” Deacon says. He covers his mouth. “Stop that,” he says, muffled under his hands. He groans and lowers his hands again. “I already almost let Rig die. I can’t have that happen again. I—” He stops when Rig steps in front of him. “Rig...?”

Rig grabs Deacon by the cheeks and kisses him on the lips. Deacon vanishes instantly, and Rig wipes his lips on the back of his wrist.

“Gross, gross, gross,” he grumbles. “That better mean he’s awake.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Nick deadpans. “You better not kiss us to wake us too.”

“Can’t,” Rig says. “You’d be expecting it.”

“Well,” Echo says. “Just as long as he remembers to—” She goes silent as she catches sight of her breath misting in the cold air. She looks to the door, and the others follow her gaze.

There’s a hiss and the sight of glowing, red eyes in the darkness...

Deacon jolts in the freezing darkness at the feeling of something on his lips that fades away. He looks around in a panic— Rig’s still on the couch behind him. Nick is propped up against the wall. Echo passed out at the table with a paper in her hand—

_The drawings_.

He scrambles to his feet and hurries over to the table and pries the child’s drawing from Echo’s cold but not quite yet dead hands. He fishes out his lighter and flicks it alive. The flame catches the corner of the drawing and he drops it to the safety of the concrete floor to finish burning...

...No one’s waking up... There’s a hissing that rings in his ears... What else is he...?

He looks down at Rig’s journal. Right... Of course... He opens the book and flips to the right page and tears it out. He lights it as well and adds it to the other paper burning on the ground.

The poem on the back of Rig’s drawing blackens as the fire curls the pages into cinder. It eats away the words until all that’s left is “ _thoughts to nightmares wed”_... Those words burn away leaving nothing but a smoldering pile of ash...

The ash begins to glow, and Deacon backs away as a specter, vaguely opossum and scorpion shape, bursts out, shrieking like a banshee, only to vanish into the ether...

The room warms slowly, and Deacon takes in his deep breaths.

He’s calm again by the time Nick jolts, blinking in confusion. Echo groans behind Deacon, and sits up, wiping dried blood from her nose. All that leaves is...

Rig grunts and turns over on the couch, his back to the rest of them. He lies like that, still and silent... And then flips back over and sits up, blinks in a daze. He looks at the other three and squints.

“Euh?” he asks. “Di— did— Did the...?”

“Monster’s gone,” Echo says. She stands and stretches. “ _Ow_... Shouldn’t have passed out like that...”

Nick grabs the wall for leverage back onto his feet. He takes a moment to steady himself and then goes over to Echo to hug her. “I swear,” he says. “I did not expect you and Rig to attract so many ghosts and monsters.”

Rig looks at Deacon. Deacon stares back, no emotion on his face. Rig cracks a smile and utters out a soft “Thank you...”

Deacon rushes to the couch and wraps his arms around Rig like he’s Lil’ Deacon. Rig blinks rapidly but then settles in the hold and loosely holds onto Deacon.

“It’s okay,” Rig says. “We’re okay. S’probably my fault... Found the picture, listened to the radio...” He sighs. “Sorry...”

“The rain’s stopped,” Echo says. “It’s 6 AM. We can go ahead and pack up and leave.”

“Sounds good,” Deacon says, his cheerful tone sounding shaking. “Just— In a moment.”

“Stealing my body heat?” Rig asks.

“Yep,” Deacon holds Rig a bit closer. “It’s _freezing_ and you’re warm. Congratulations on being promoted to space heater.”

Nick and Echo share a smirk at each other.

“We’ll start packing,” Nick says. “You two can stay like that for a bit.”

“Don’t do anything you don’t want us seeing,” Echo quips.

“Voyeurs,” Deacon quips back. “Let two men cuddle in peace.”

Nick and Echo laugh and head to the next room for their supplies. Rig glances up at Deacon.

“Sorry,” he says again.

“It’s not your fault,” Deacon says.

“...For kissing you.”

“...Oh, well.” Deacon smiles at him. “Had to be done...” He glances to the window and the early morning light starting to seep through. “So... What was your nightmare...?”

Rig grimaces. “There was... a person I don’t trust... who wouldn’t stop invading my privacy... Just standing in my bedroom...”

“...Yeah?”

“...S’stupid.”

“I’m not judging you,” Deacon replies. He glances to the journal still resting on the table. “You... want to get up and help the other two now?”

Rig frowns. “I guess... You okay?”

“Just fine,” Deacon answers. He stands and grins at Rig. “Why wouldn’t I be...?”

Neither of them choose to say any of the many obvious answers to that question.


	3. It Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rig tells a story about an old river he used to visit. Something tries to call him home.

The night is young, the party is lively, and the people friendly as they invite the four of them to join in. Friends of Echo’s, or at the least people she helped before. New faces Rig hasn’t met before, but people Echo trusts and that’s good enough. Nick and Deacon mingle—these must be faces  _ they’re _ familiar with at least—and Rig is left to sit on his own and work on his writing.

Sanctuary. A good name. A safe name. A name that gives a place purpose. It feels good here.

He pauses in his writing to listen in on the ghost story Deacon is sharing with some of the settlers. One that sounds a bit familiar. About a many armed monster of flesh and decay that manifests in the fog... A ghost that does its bidding to bring it victims... The jeers of the listeners about how unrealistic it is.

“Oh, no, it’s real,” Deacon says. “Was real. Right, Rig? We ran into it and it almost killed you.”

“It was scary and I hated it,” Rig agrees. “2 out of 10 stars, would not recommend.”

“A  _ two?” _ Deacon laughs. “What would you rate the scorpossum monster then?”

“Mm...” Rig taps his pen against his lips and then gestures with it. “2.4. Cute, threatening, had to kiss you to get away from it and that wasn’t fun. Gotta deduct a point six for that.”

The other listeners laugh at that, and Deacon pouts in pretend offense.

“You’re a writer, right?” one of them asks, looking Rig’s way. “You got any ghost stories?”

“Not really,” Rig shrugs. “I mean, I might be able to make something mundane sound scary if I words it words enough.”

“Words enough?” a settler whispers to another.

“Well, go for it,” Deacon grins. “It’s about time you took a turn telling a story.”

“Aw, but I like yours,” Rig grins. “You make them sound so believable.”

One of the settlers snorts in amusement, and Rig smiles. The settler leans in. “Go on,” they prompt. “What do you have for us?”

Rig tilts his head and thinks over what to say. He grins and laughs softly. “Well...” Should he use a dramatic voice...? He isn’t quite an actor, but he could at least speak in the same awe and reverence he sincerely has for the subject... “When I lived in Florida, a long time ago,” he starts. “Near the coast, just a short trip over a bridge across the river to the ocean... We could walk on that bridge, high above the water, too high to jump from, not to say that people didn’t try... We could take the stairs down to the dock hidden underneath. Beautiful at night. Black water under yellow light, glittering as the water ripples like gold to tempt you in. Old fishermen who did not speak, did not look your way, merely fished for the unknown creatures in the dark, dark water. A moonless night, a sky without stars, just you looking over the railing with the wind on your back and the knowledge that something,  _ something _ is there, watching, waiting to  _ drag. You. IN.” _ He leans back, voice a bit wistful as he continues. “And that siren call, even now, years after you had seen the black-gold waters... Calling, whispering for you to go back under the bridge... To stare into water, reach down, reach into the depths... and be engulfed by the depths reaching back.” He lets out a longing sigh and then returns to his writing.

“Ha, well,” he hears Deacon say, followed by a “Hey, Echo!”

“What the hell did you do this time?” Echo calls back from across the street.

“Don’t take Rig to any bridges, okay?”

Rig looks up, brow flattened in annoyance.

“Yeah, okay, noted!” Echo waves back.

“We took a bridge here,” Rig reminds. “I was fine then.”

Deacon hums. “Good point. HEY ECHO, AMENDMENT.”

_ “WHAT?” _

“NO BRIDGES AT  _ NIGHT, _ SPECIFICALLY.”

“FINE, WHATEVER.”

Rig pokes his tongue through his lips, looking none too happy. Deacon grins at him and leans over to pat his knee.

“Just in case,” Deacon grins. “You attract monsters like Echo attracts ghosts.”

Rig frowns as the settler seated closest to him leans away. “It’s because I’m cute and make easy prey.”

“No arguments there,” Deacon says. “But I rather you not get eaten by monsters in the middle of the night, thanks.”

“Tis my curse,” Rig retorts. “Once every 600 years. Monster eats me. And I reborn as larb.” He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah.”

Deacon shakes his head. “Yeah, let’s not make this that 600th year, alright?”

“...Okay.”

“Wow,” one of the settlers says. “Another haunted one?”

Rig shrugs. “Ehn. I was cursed at a young age to suffer through monsters. It just that the monsters used to be, uh....  _ Human _ and not... whatever flesh. Things. Th— Things they are now.”

The settlers gathered with them stare for a moment. One of them lets out a “Are you saying that story was  _ real?!” _ and Deacon stands up, pulling Rig up by the arm with him.

“Whoops, looks like it’s time for bed,” Deacon laughs. He gives Rig a chance to put away his journal and then drags him off. “Night!”

Rig frowns as he follows along behind Deacon. “It’s... just a story... that I made up... Is— You don’t... have to worry this time, do you? If I’m the one who made it up.” When Deacon doesn’t answer, Rig furrows his brow. “You’re worried...”

“...Let’s just get some sleep, Rigs,” Deacon says.

“...Okay.”

* * *

Rig blinks his eyes open to a dark night. Much too early to be up, he decides as he flips onto his back to stare at the ceiling. It’s a soft night, a slight chill, a blanket on him and a warm, empty spot next to him that’s quickly cooling...

He blinks and then furrows his brow and sits up. He’s still in Sanctuary... He’s still where he fell asleep... Yet something feels off... Something’s missing, and he wants to find it.

Rig tosses the blanket aside and gets up, stretching and then stumbling out of the shelter onto the empty streets of Sanctuary. In the quiet and peace of the night, it feels like it once did years and years ago...

...Back in his hometown on the rare, restless nights he escaped from his house for late night walks... Anything to get away from the monsters living in what should have been a home.

He yawns and stumbles down the street, aimlessly searching for whatever he’s missing. Humming a small song as he walks where his feet decide to take him. Something...

Something...

Something calling for him...

A single name, a pull on his heart, like a chain dragging him forward... Eyelids heavy, vision blurring...

A cold hand gripping the collar of his shirt, tugging him back to reality. He yelps and pulls away, stumbling back and tripping over his own feet onto the ground. He winces and looks up at familiar gold eyes glowing down at him in the dark.

“Rig,” Nick says, wary and hesitant. “Where are you going?”

Rig blinks and looks around, trying to place where he is to start with. “I’unno,” he shrugs.

“...You were humming something,” Nick prompts.

Rig tilts his head. “Was I...?”

Nick sighs. He holds out a hand to help Rig up. “How much do you remember?”

Rig frowns but accepts the help up. “Woke up... was alone... went looking for something... Don’t know what...”

“Not another monster, is it?”

“No,” Rig says. “No. Maybe a ghost, but not a monster.”

“Hmm, no,” Nick says. “If it were a ghost, Echo would know about it...” He pauses a moment and then curses under his breath. “Alright, let’s get you back to Deacon and then I need to check on Echo.”

Rig winces. “But I—”

“Unless you’re saying you have a  _ reason _ for wandering around on your own, late at night, while defenseless?” Nick stares at Rig, waiting for an answer, and Rig merely looks away and thins his lips. “Thought so,” Nick says. “Come on. Deacon should be back by now.”

“...S’not a monster,” Rig mumbles, following beside Nick. “Can’t be a third time...”

Nick frowns. “As Echo likes to say, rule of threes...”

Rig frowns. “So— So if this  _ is _ the third time. Does that mean there won’t be a fourth?”

“...No, there could be a fourth. Until we figure out what exactly is making you attract monsters...”

Rig averts his gaze, glaring at the ground as they walk. “Stupid...” he mumbles. This is stupid... This is wrong... Wrong... Wrong...

Wrong way... Turn around, leave behind Nick, there’s something he needs to find.

Rig starts to waver and veer to the side— He latches onto Nick’s hand and pushes off the ground into Nick’s side to hold onto his arm.

Nick gives him a look. “...Something really is wrong, huh?”

“I’ll be fine tonight,” Rig mumbles. “Just as long as someone’s there. Muh— Maybe Deacon was right, though... Ought— Ought to stay ‘way from bridges...”

“Hmm...” Nick guides Rig to his shelter right as Deacon is about to step outside. “Deacon,” Nick says. He wiggles his arm free and pushes Rig forward into Deacon’s arms. “Watch your boy more closely tonight. I need to check on Echo.”

“Uh, sure,” Deacon watches Nick leave and then looks at Rig. “...Alright, back to bed. Can’t take a bathroom break without you getting into trouble, can I?”

“No,” Rig sighs. He slumps forward, bumping his forehead against Deacon’s. “Sorry.”

Deacon rests his hand on the back of Rig’s head, fingers lacing Rig’s hair. “Hey. Whatever’s going on this time... We’ll get through it.”

Rig reaches up and cups Deacon’s cheek. “Better not go after you again. F’if they’re after me, they shouldn’t go after you. Leave you and Echo and Nick out of it.” He pulls back and frowns at Deacon. “...Take me to bed.”

Deacon smiles. “If you were anyone else... C’mon, Rigsby.”

“...Wait, what does that mean?”

“Nothing, Rigs.”

“Is that normally a euphemism or something?”

“Rig, you’re going to sleep.”

“...Okay.”

* * *

_ Everything painted in black and gold   
There’s something waiting in a story untold   
Secrets in the water   
A lamb and its slaughter   
Do you blame the monsters   
Or their culpable father? _

Rig pins the dot on the question mark, the query hanging in his mind as he wanders through potential meanings of words he wrote without thinking. Not a question of who’s to blame, but the question of who the father of monsters could be.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, to think that there’s some single origin of these monsters at fault. A creature that manifests in the mists is significantly different from a creature living in a child’s nightmares... And far different from the pull he feels in the dead of night to who knows where... A call he wants so desperately to ignore. A yearning that keeps him up at night that he can’t fulfill with eyes and arms on him to keep him in bed.

It’s not even  _ scary, _ it’s just  _ annoying. _

But night passes into morning until it’s three days later, he hasn’t gotten any sleep, and his head spins as he stares at his words for some stability when the words everyone else is saying around him crumble each time he tries to latch onto them.

“—nap,” Echo says, staring straight at him.

He blinks up at her. “Wha...?”

“Take a nap,” she orders, pointing to the nearest flat surface which might be a mattress he’s too out of it to tell. “It’s daytime, you’re safe, go take a nap. You’re allowed to sleep during the day.”

“...Oh,” Rig stands and nearly falls over, but Nick’s quick to catch him and guide him safely over to the—what do you know, it is a mattress... He lies down and latches onto Lil’ Deacon when Deacon drops the bear right next to him.

The next thing he knows, he’s standing at the edge of a river...

He hears the song he had been humming, calling like a siren song from the water... He reaches for it...

Something reaches out and pulls him under.

Down, down, down into the murky depths of the water, with no chance to break free from the hand on his wrist. The bottom feels like it’s miles away with how far he’s been dragged. Down, down, down...

The hand lets go, and Rig pulls back. He swims upwards, feeling the push of the water trying to keep him under. Feeling the tug of whatever is trying to anchor him down to the darkness. He keeps swimming, at an angle upwards, as unknown things brush against his skin, slimy, sleek, and cold...

He breaches the surface of the water and takes a ragged gasp of air, unsure how long he went without breathing...

A lake, not a river. He looks around for the nearest shore to paddle to and instead spies something in the water ahead of him...

A flooded house with its roof barely escaping the grips of the water. A song from inside, that he swims towards...

A being dressed in black standing on the roof as he approaches, with a face of static and a whisper of  _ “not you again” _ before he vanishes with a small whisper of  _ “good luck”. _

_ _

Rig blinks but swims up to the house anyway and pulls himself onto the rough, sandpaper-y shingles and sits where the man had been standing.

He hums along to the music.

The voice inside stops.

Rig tilts his head, glancing downward as if through the roof. “I made this one up for a story I told strangers,” he says. “If this curse is in fact my imagination creating monsters for me, I will be very upset because creation is my natural state of being. But poems and stories aren’t the same thing as something real and tangible. It’s one thing to play Mr. Victor and intentionally create a monster son you abandon. It’s another to have children pulled from your thoughts unwillingly like an Athena split from a headache. I took no strides to be a father. It better not be me to blame.”

Something splashes in the water in the house... something swimming out through the window and then circling the roof.

He watches, calm and stoic as his dreamself tends to be. The coolness he doesn’t have in life, the helplessness knowing he’s dreaming but being unable to stop it and the resulting apathy as whatever the monster of the week could be tries to terrify him...

_ Victor... hide... _ the voice in the water sings

_ Water... come... _

_ Calling... home... _

_ Come... home... _

“My home was destroyed in South Carolina during the Battle of Gettysburg,” Rig says. “Some things are best not returned to.”

“Rig, I know you’re half-asleep, but the Battle of Gettysburg wasn’t in South Carolina.”

Rig opens an eye to Nick watching him. He stares a moment but then sits up and rubs sleep from his eyes. “Nrgh. Chess isn’t my strong suit.”

“...I can tell.” Nick holds out a hand to help Rig to his feet. “Well you slept for nearly 18 hours. And you didn’t go galavanting off to the nearest body of water, so that’s an improvement.”

“Had a weird dream instead,” Rig says. “Something ‘bout a house that’s flooded in a lake.”

“...Right.” Nick eyes him cautiously. “And...?”

Rig hums. He snaps his fingers. “I want to go to that house, swim inside, and see what’s in there.”

“Which is exactly what we  _ won’t _ be doing,” Nick nods. “I’ll have to double check with Echo that there isn’t some ghost haunting you.”

“Some guy named Victor,” Rig says. “Some singing siren selkie— Wait, no, it’s a kelpie.” He nods. “Singing siren kelpie. Water horse. Water— Water house.”

Nick sighs. “Do you need to go back to bed?”

“No,” Rig chirps. He turns to leave, but Nick grabs onto his collar and tugs him back.

“Hey, no,” Nick orders. “You’re not going off by yourself anywhere.”

“I can swim,” Rig pouts. “I’m from  _ Florida.” _

“That’s not the issue!” Nick groans. “Rig, you don’t know how to handle these monsters as well as you think you do.” He sighs at Rig’s hurt look. “Look, we just don’t want you to get yourself killed. After those last two scares, Deacon isn’t exactly going to let you risk yourself diving right into the jaws of some lake monster.”

“But what’s going to happen if I don’t?” Rig asks. He flinches. “I mean— Not that I want to be eaten by a lake monster, but we can’t keep— keep, uh... words. Letting me feel like I’m being called someplace I don’t even know. Having weird dreams with monsters and static and s’just...” He frowns. “I feel like there’s... something happening. That it’s... not coincidence, all these monsters... One in a lake nearby calling for me after my story ‘bout an old river a blamillion miles away. If— If we don’t know how else to stop it, why not... go there and see what we find?”

“Right,” Nick frowns. “So that all of us can be eaten by a lake monster. Rig, I know you want to be killed by a Mirelurk, but we don’t exactly want any of us to die.”

Rig looks away. He picks up Lil’ Deacon and holds him to his chest. “Fine... Should we ask Echo ‘bout that Victor ghost at least...?”

“We’re going to wait for them to come back given things,” Nick says. “I don’t want to risk losing sight of you if you’re going to wander off the moment we aren’t watching you.”

“Yeah...” Rig says. He pouts. “But you don’t need to do that...”

Nick gives him a flat look. Rig sighs and sits down. Nick sits down across from him and stares. They both look up at the sound of singing in the distance.

“Who the hell is that?” Nick asks.

Rig hums along. “Dunno,” he says. “But it’s familiar...” He hums more.

Nick squints at him. “Oh— That’s that song you were humming the other night.”

“Huh?” Rig asks. “What song?”

Nick winces as the lights making up his eyes flicker. “Damn—” He rubs at his eyes. “C’mon, this is not the time...”

Nick’s vision blinks back to normal just as the singing fades away... Nick looks to Rig and his eyes drop down to Lil’ Deacon, face down on the mattress, and he turns to see the door swung open. “God  _ dammit!” _ He grabs Lil’ Deacon and hurries out the door in hopes of catching Rig before he goes too far.

“Woah, Nick!” Deacon takes a step back as Nick comes out the door. “Where are you going with my son?”

Echo frowns. “Weren’t you watching Rig?”

“Did you see he went?” Nick asks, handing Lil’ Deacon to Deacon. “Whatever ghost siren is leading him away messed with me so I couldn’t see him leave.”

Echo scowls.  _ “Gods. _ Of course.”

“Where’s he supposed to be headed?” Deacon asks. “The nearest bridge is a few miles away.”

“Not a bridge,” Nick says. “A house in a lake.” He looks at Echo. “He said something about a Victor...”

Echo’s lips thin. She turns her head towards Deacon. “That’s the name of the ghost that possessed you.”

Deacon scowls. “Because why wouldn’t that ghost still be around after we killed its pet monster, right? I think I know of a lake that house may be.”

“We should hurry,” Echo says. “Before Rig gets killed by something worse than a mirelurk.”

* * *

_ “You can’t hide, though you tried,” _ he sings under his breath.  _ “Come wade into the shallows of the water...” _

Was it close to night when he woke up? It’s dark now... Everything dark though he can see just fine... Everything bathed in murky shadows and golden moonlight...

_ “Call you home, from devil’s tome, come home to your place within the water...” _

He hums more until he reaches the edge of a lake... He blinks, and for a second, everything lights up silver... This is familiar... What’s he doing here again...?

_ “Rig...” _ a voice calls him, and he settles his gaze on an old house filled to the tops of the windows with water.  _ “Rigsby...” _

He takes off his shirts and sets them aside and kicks off his shoes and socks. He’d prefer it if he had a swimsuit, but pants will have to do. He can do this shirtless, but he refuses to remove his pants... He wades into the water, shuffling his feet along the bottom of the water until he’s deep enough in, and he swims out towards the house.

_ A car drives up to the simple home, and a man steps out to greet the older couple in the doorway. _

_ “It’s good to see you, Victor,” the woman says, pulling the young man down to kiss his cheek. _

_ The older man pats Victor on the back. “I’m proud of you, son. Graduating, with honors. You’re going to do great things.” _

_ “It’s good to see you, Mom, Dad,” Victor smiles. “I’ve already got a job at a lab in a nearby city. I’ll be able to support  _ **_you_ ** _ after all you did for me.” _

Rig blinks back to find his head under the porch roof. The door open in front of him.

“Rig!” someone calls.

He takes a deep breath and dives under, grabbing his way down the door frame to swim into the house.

_ Victor walks into the home, dark bags under his eyes, fog filling the world outside. His father ignores him to watch TV while his mother knits. _

_ “You’re late for dinner, dear,” his mother says. _

_ “Long day at the lab,” Victor replies. “I had to take some work home with me.” _

_ His father curses. “Don’t get any of those weird chemicals on the carpet this time! It was like cleaning out blood, but smellier!” _

_ “It was blood,” Victor mumbles, too quiet to hear. He carries his things to his room. Once he gets his creation made, he’ll show them... God isn’t the only being capable of creating life... _

Rig surfaces in a room, unsure what room but with enough headspace for him to breathe... But the air is heavy and humid... dizzying...

What is he doing...?

Something grabs his ankle and drags him down.

_ “Victor, you’re taking things too far!” his father yells from behind the door. “Whatever you’re doing in there, stop it now!” _

_ Victor scowls and drags the knife through the body’s flesh. He’s not done. He only has a bit more to do and then he can let loose his monsters on the people who wronged him... One made of fog... One that haunts dreams... And this one, his new creation— _

Rig blinks into awareness, underwater and disoriented, and kicks whatever grabbed him only for something to slice his foot. He tries to shout but chokes on the water. He curls over and unhooks his pant leg from the dead, bony skeleton hand that somehow hooked onto it. That’s red in the water. That’s blood. What cut him...? He looks at it and sees a knife... the one Victor used... sharp, jagged, horrific, resting among the other sigils and ceremonial items... His hand floats beyond his control to hover over the table...

He can’t breathe. That’s dizziness from a lack of air. Which way is up...?

He grabs blindly and then swims at an angle upward until he’s in an air pocket again, just as heavy and suffocating. He dives down, out of the room, back through the house on a path he didn’t know he knew, his foot stinging and body aching. He’s about to pass out...

Something grabs him, and he recoils, but it holds fast and drags him along, and he rag dolls and lets it. It pulls him out of the home, back into the lake...

And then pulls him up to the surface to let him breathe actual, fresh air. He coughs out water and breathes heavily and looks to see a woman with white, glowing eyes obscured only by the wet locks dripping down her scarred, furious face.

“What the  _ fuck _ did you just do?” Echo demands.

Rig blinks. “H-Huh??” He moves his leg and instantly feels a jolt of pain up it. “Ah— Ow—”

Echo keeps a tight grip on him. “We need to get to shore. C’mon.”

“Okay,” Rig winces. “Okay, okay, okay...”

Somehow they get close enough for Rig to kneel on his hands and knees in the shallows, and Deacon wades in to help Echo bring Rig the rest of the way in without Rig needing to walk on his injured foot. They let him out on the ground next to where he left his clothes and he looks up to see Nick staring down at him in disappointment.

Rig smiles nervously. “Didn’t... get eaten...?”

Nick frowns and walks out of sight. Deacon takes his place, kneeling next to him and holding his hand.

“Hey, Rigs,” Deacon says. “What’s 54 times 96?”

Rig blinks. “Um.... Five thousand, one hundred, eighty— Ah!” He squeezes hard on Deacon’s hand and tries to look and what he’s sure is Echo using a Stimpak on him, but Deacon holds him down until it’s over and Rig relaxes.

“In my defense,” Rig mumbles. “I wouldn’t normally go swimming into unknown houses in the middle of a lake. I don’t actually like swimming.”

“Ghosts be rude like that,” Echo groans. “Lucky for you I can practically breathe underwater.”

“Lucky,” Rig says.

“What’s that in your hand?” Nick asks.

“Deacon’s hand,” Rig says, lifting up Deacon’s hand as proof.

“Your  _ left _ hand.”

“Oh.” Rig sits up and looks at what he grabbed... He unfolds the pair of sunglasses and puts them on. “How do I look?”

“Terrible,” Echo says, putting back on her own sunglasses. “Like a puppy that’s been locked out in the rain.

“Oh...” Rig slicks his soaked hair out of his face. “...Got a towel?” He flinches when one is thrown at his face, but he starts to dry off. “I, um... Sorry. I didn’t  _ want _ to do that...”

“We’ve  _ got _ to take care of this ghost,” Deacon says. “I don’t want it coming back a third time.”

“Rule of threes,” Rig mumbles. He reaches to move the sunglasses out of the way—

It’s still daytime after all... It’s bright...

He puts the sunglasses back and grabs his shirts to put them back on. “So,” he says as he shrugs on his flamingo shirt. “Now what?”


	4. It Waits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rig is acting weird... He must be... Possessed. (Dun, dun, dun...)

The night after Rig’s impromptu “swim” is a bit more quiet and eerie than Deacon is enjoying considering a ghost tried to kill Rig yet again. Weirdly, Rig seems much too apathetic about the situation. Taking it as something that’s inevitable. That’s worrying enough, to say nothing of Rig not seeming to know what he saw or did swimming into the “Lake House”. But Rig, now dry and tired, quickly falls asleep with Lil’ Deacon in his arms and his new sunglasses askew on his face. Nick keeps an eye on him, just in case, while Echo pulls Deacon outside their temporary shelter, and hopefully out of hearing distance of any ghosts haunting Rig.

“Nick and I are going to head off on our own for a bit,” she says. “You need to keep an eye on Rig in the meantime. We can’t take him with us.”

“Oh, come on,” Deacon casts a playful smile despite the nervous dart of his eyes back towards their shelter for the night. “Just because he’s being targeted by monsters...”

“And a very persistent ghost,” Echo reminds. “That made those monsters in the first place.”

Deacon swallows. “Oh.”

“Yep.”

“Soooo...?”

“Yes, he’s haunted right now.” Echo sighs. “I thought the ghost was tethered to the radio, but it’s  _ following _ him. Making him meet its pet monsters, probably trying to feed them despite the fog one having killed it in the first place. Nick and I are going to cycle back and try and figure out if there’s something we missed. In the meantime, you need to keep the ghost from killing him. Rule of threes. We dealt with two monsters but never actually met Victor’s third.” She taps her sunglasses. “Probably will have to do with the shades he took from Victor’s old house.”

“Right.” Deacon swipes a hand down his face. “ _ Right. _ And if I get possessed again, who’s going to stop me from killing him? I almost didn’t snap out of it in time with the fog monster. I said— I said some awful things.”

“That wasn’t you,” Echo reminds. “We’ve been over this, nerd.”

“...Yeah,” Deacon sighs. “Right. Of course. Definitely not me at all.”

“Deeks.”

“Still,” Deacon continues. “If I’m possessed again, what should I do? Just try and snap out of it? Hope it’s not too late? You’re the ghost expert here.”

“Look,” Echo says. “You care about him. Enough to cuddle with him and worry about losing him. You just need to admit to that to yourself and your subconscious won’t let anything possessing you hurt him.”

“...My subconscious mind lies as much as my conscious mind does.”

“Tough,” Echo huffs up. “You need to keep an eye on him.”

“Why can’t Nick?” Deacon whines. “He’s doing such a great job!”

“...Deeks.”

“I’m sure letting Rig get called to the Lake House was a fluke.”

_ “Deeks.” _

“Oh, fine,” he sighs. “Have fun on your date.”

They get back to the shelter, and after some final preparations, Nick and Echo wander off into the dark of the night, hand in hand and mission in mind. Meanwhile for Deacon, he’s left to watch a sleeping Rig cuddle with a teddy bear and drool into a pillow...

Deacon glances to the side where Rig’s journal is sitting, somehow not waterlogged by the dip from earlier that day. Probably still readable...

Rig’s nightmare is someone invading his privacy... In his bedroom... probably watching him sleep like some kind of creep. The kind of person Rig can’t trust... Deacon’s hands twitch as he keeps himself from being that kind of person and reading the journal without permission...

But he doesn’t have that kind of self-control. He needs to see what’s in there. What kind of intel there is that could keep him safe. He grabs the journal and flips through the pages, just as he does every night he gets the chance, looking for anything new.

Another poem, newly written.

_ Bright as the sun _ _   
_ _ The darkness of one _ _   
_ _ A fate cruelly twisted by a vengeful son _ _   
_ _ Crushed by his child _ _   
_ _ Tormented and wild _ _   
_ _ After haunting a faculty ruthless and riled _ _   
_ _ By nightmares and death _ _   
_ _ For an unjustified debt  _ _   
_ _ By a young child drawing in their last breath _ _   
_ _ Drawings of monsters _ _   
_ _ Of sigils and signs _ _   
_ _ A knife among them with tribute _ _   
_ _ Of blood for divines _ _   
_ _ As the final payment a father would give _ _   
_ _ To see the birth of his child he could never outlive _ __   
_ Two children murdered before they could feast _ _   
_ __ But the third and final has now been released

Well. That’s not a good sign. He flips through for anything else new but... nothing. Deacon goes back to the poem to commit it to memory.

By morning, the journal is back in place exactly where it had been left the night before. Rig wakes up to an empty room, yawning and wiping drool from his chin. He fixes his sunglasses and sets Lil’ Deacon with Deacon’s things and gets up to put his journal in his pocket.

Deacon watches from outside the broken wall at a safe distance. He doesn’t  _ feel _ possessed, but still... He doesn’t want to rush into things with that third monster sure to be on their trail...

...Rig seems happy. That’s... off. For someone dependent on others to stay safe, the fact he doesn’t look worried at all to wake up alone and unprotected is... wrong. Rig’s smiling and casually picking up the room as if it’s just normal house keeping and not a decaying structure barely safe enough to spend a night sleeping in.

Maybe... Deacon isn’t the one Victor’s trying to possess... Unless he read Rig wrong worse than he thought. Maybe this  _ is _ like Rig, but...

He’s still wearing those sunglasses. Sunglasses belong on Deacon’s face, on Echo’s, and on Lil’ Deacon’s. Not on Rig’s. He reaches under his own sunglasses, gently rubbing the corner of his eye. There was... static in his eyes when he was possessed, Rig had said. That his shades were hiding... If Victor wanted to possess someone...

Deacon slips to the side out of his hiding place, arcing around to avoid Rig seeing him prematurely. He makes it back to the entrance of the shelter and knocks on the open door. “Delivery,” he calls.

“Deacon!” Rig beams at him, much like he does whenever one of them particularly enjoys a joke Rig makes but rare to be seen unprompted. Rig rushes up to him and pulls him into a hug and kisses his cheek. “There you are! I knew you couldn’t be too far.”

“I was getting some breakfast,” Deacon grins, holding up a box of Fancy Lads. “Got your favorite.”

“That’s okay,” Rig says. “I’m not hungry.”

“Ha, yeah, you never are,” Deacon smiles. Doubt is a cruel demon sinking its teeth into his hand trying to feed it. Is this Rig? Is this  _ not _ Rig? Echo would have told him if the Rig she pulled out of the Lake House wasn’t the real deal. Her psyker powers would have let her know... Possession. Has to be possession. He tosses the box towards his things and then reaches up to Rig’s face to hold his cheek. “But, hey, Nick and Echo are gone for a bit. It’s just the two of us...” He tugs down Rig’s sunglasses...

Brown eyes, squinting in the brightness of the sunlight. Hmm.

Rig pulls back just enough to push the frames back over his eyes. “So we’re... waiting for them to come back? Is that all?”

“Well, we’re not waiting  _ here,” _ Deacon says. “That’d be boring. And would make us easy targets. We’ll keep moving, and they’ll catch up with us eventually. Think of it as a long game of tag.”

Rig tilts his head. “Will— Will they know how to find us...?”

“Sure!” Deacon grins. “Echo’s great at finding things. A real compass.”

“...Doesn’t she get lost in Diamond City? Despite living there?”

“Trust me,” Deacon says. “She’ll find us, one way or another. But I don’t want us hanging in one place for too long. You know how the wastelands are. Raiders, super mutants, yow-geehnii— uh, the weird mutant bears—”

“Bears,” Rig points at Lil’ Deacon. “Like your son.”

“Right,” Deacon says. “So let’s get—”

“But monsters,” Rig says, curling his fingers as if they’re claws. “Rawr. Monsters.”

“...Yeah.”

“The first one was scariest,” Rig says. “Because— Because you were possessed by that radio ghost. That was scary.”

“...Yeah?” Deacon asks.

“Because I didn’t know,” Rig says. “I— I didn’t know why you would do that to me because— Because I’m too  _ stupid. _ I’m just— You could have gotten hurt because— because too stupid to realize—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Deacon frowns. “You’re not stupid. I don’t know if there was anything you could have done—” He smiles. “But, hey, you knew what to do with that second one, didn’t you?”

“Kissed you,” Rig says. “Because I don’t normally kiss, so would be shocking...”

Deacon feels his cheek burning where Rig had kissed him just moments before. He swallows his worries and smiles. “We’re wasting time. You sure you don’t want to eat before we go?”

“No,” Rig says. “Let’s just go...”

Deacon utters a small “Right...” and gathers up his things, tucking Lil’ Deacon safely into his bag before heading out with Rig following beside him. He keeps Rig in his peripheral as they walk, taking occasional sly glances at him as he leads the way to somewhere safer— both for Rig if there’s a third monster after him and for Deacon if Rig’s possessed after all.

“Can I hold your hand?” Rig asks.

Deacon’s face reddens. “Uh... Sorry, Rigsby, I need both hands free today.”

“Okay,” Rig says. “I guess I won’t offer my 14 caps then.”

Deacon looks at him, brow lifting. “Oh...?”

“Because wouldn’t be free,” Rig shrugs. “It’s— Was that one a bad one? I could do better.”

“Why do you only ever have 14 caps?” Deacon asks.

“Oh,” Rig hums. “Because... Because that’s what I started with, so that’s what I like to carry in my pocket. I have more in my pouch. That’s the spending ones.”

“We should get you a fanny pack,” Deacon grins. “With that flamingo shirt and your new sunglasses? I could see you rocking that old world vacation chic.”

“No sandals,” Rig says. “S’too cold for sandals.”

“Sooo,” Deacon says. “Why would you offer  _ me _ only 14 caps to hold my hand if you have more you’re carrying?”

“Because,” Rig says. “You’d get the special, favorite ones I don’t spend.”

Deacon frowns. “Being, uh... extra loving and affectionate today, aren’t you...?”

Rig stops walking and Deacon stops as well to turn and face him as Rig stares, expression unreadable with his eyes hidden.

“I...” Rig starts and then turns his head away and rubs his neck. “Sorry, I— Thought we were— Sorry.”

Deacon tilts his head. ...This better be a ghost possessing Rig, or else Deacon’s going to feel  _ so bad _ later. With how rarely either of them are comfortable enough to show affection— When the only reason Rig does is because he thinks it’s  _ gross _ and  _ scary _ to be affectionate—

Right— Rig thinks it’s gross and scary. This has to be a ghost.

Rig turns his head to look at him again. “Um... Should— Should I go? You’re just— You’re not saying anything...”

“Oh,” Deacon smiles. “No, just— Just thinking. You don’t have to go. It’d be safer for you to stay with me.”

“...Okay,” Rig says. “I’m trusting you.”

...It’s going to be a  _ long _ waiting game, making sure neither ghosts nor monsters hurt either of them while they wait for Echo and Nick to return. Luckily Deacon’s well-practiced not letting his anxiety or anticipation show.

Well, okay, maybe the supernatural is where he can’t quite keep up his normal facade...

...This will be a long day.

“Getting anything?” Nick asks as he and Echo search around the old lab. The stench of the rotting monster in the down the hall is bad enough for him, and he can’t imagine what Echo’s experiencing with a fully functional nose.

“A thing or two,” Echo answers. Her eyes glow white under her sunglasses and she follows an unknown trail to a room with a radio and a crushed skeleton waiting inside. “Hmm...”

“Rig said it started with a radio ghost, didn’t he?” Nick asks. “Victor calling for help only to be killed and lead others here to their deaths...”

“...He never wanted to leave the Earthly plane,” Echo whispers.

“He didn’t want to die,” Nick surmises.

“Yeah, but he phrased it badly.” Echo reaches for the radio and draws her hand back as if it burnt her. “He could haunt the Earthly plane as a ghost. His monsters knew that...”

“And that’s why the fog one killed him?”

“To bind him to the Earth. Give him what he wanted.” She tilts her head. “Revenge against those he hated and an eternity stuck on Earth.”

“He made these things to kill people,” Nick says.

“Which is why he kept feeding them after his death.” Echo motions towards the dead monster. “And why he’s weaker now. Because we killed two of the three. If he made Rig summon the last one...”

“One last attempt to stick around...” Nick frowns. “And he doesn’t seem particularly fond of Rig or Deacon...”

“...We should go find where the last monster will manifest. Before something lures them to it.”

“Right.”

“So,” Deacon breaks the awkward silence that had been cursing their walk. “Rigsby. Got any new poems in the works?”

“Always,” Rig answers, looking more at the world around them than at Deacon. “Love writing. Rhymes and— and things.”

Deacon chuckles. “I’m surprised you don’t  _ rhyme _ all the  _ time.” _

“Oh, I hate that,” Rig answers, cold and simple. “Not a fan.”

“Hmm.” Deacon makes a note of that. Normally Rig likes his words... “Not going to share your  _ world _ with the boys and—”

“Don’t rhyme ‘world’ with ‘girl,’” Rig interrupts. “That’s even worse.”

“...Right, got it.” This is all sorts of red flags in his mind. Deacon has to bide his time, until Echo and Nick come back with a solution to Rig being possessed, but if that means waiting all day leading the ghost around and trying to avoid angering it enough for it to hurt either him or Rig’s body... “So, you seem to like those sunglasses,” he says, anything to change the subject. “They look good on you.”

“Useful,” Rig says. “Glad I picked ‘em up...”

“Yep,” Deacon says. “I always said, sunglasses are the best 10-cap investment I’ve ever made. Can’t see a person’s eyes with mirror lenses, now can you?”

“...No,” Rig says, finally looking at him, head tilted in suspicion. “You can’t...”

“At least, that’s what I wear them for,” Deacon continues. “Keeps that air of mystery...” He puts on an announcer voice.  _ “The mysterious man in shades: You see his face everywhere but never can tell what he is thinking or what he will do next. Read about his escapades in this week’s issue of the Silver Shroud.” _

“...Deacon, where are we going?” Rig asks, and Deacon shuts up instantly. Rig frowns and steps closer. “I’ve been following you, but I feel like we’re not actually going anywhere...”

“Oh, we’re going somewhere,” Deacon grins. “No kidding. It’s just a walk, so we’re not in one place all day, and then we’ll find somewhere to camp out tonight...”

“...Without the other two,” Rig points out. “Just you and me and whatever monsters are waiting for us...”

Deacon tilts his head, only slightly, barely enough for Rig to notice. “Oh...?”

Rig looks away again, this time holding his wrist and flexing his left hand. “Just... Might be dangerous, right? You’re the only one who can fight or shoot a gun. I’m useless, aren’t I? Just a sweaty, useless idiot, right?”

“...Hey now.” Deacon grins at him and drapes an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. “Come on, Rigsby. Those aren’t your only traits.”

“...I don’t want to talk,” Rig says. He pulls away and speeds up his pace until he’s a few feet ahead.

With Rig’s back to him, Deacon frowns and calculates what to do. With Rig possessed and potentially leading a monster to them, or otherwise now leading them to a monster... He picks up the pace until he’s next to Rig again, and grabs onto Rig’s hand. “Oh, look,” Deacon says. “I have a hand free now, fancy that.”

Rig turns his head, looking down at their hands and then back up at Deacon. “...Yeah,” he answers, not sounding the most enthused about it. “I guess...”

“...Why don’t I show you something cool I found before. It should be nearby!”

Rig hesitates. “Um...”

“Come on,” Deacon says, tugging Rig along. “You’ll love it. Promise.”

Rig is silent after that, merely letting Deacon lead him along, off the beaten path into overgrowth and shadows. A bit  _ too _ silent without their usual chatter.

“If only we had a working radio, right?” Deacon asks.

“Mm,” Rig answers, and nothing more.

“Oh, right,” Deacon chuckles. “That’s how we got into this whole monster mash in the first place, isn’t it?”

“What even is the Monster Mash?” Rig asks.

“Oh, you know,” Deacon says. “It was a graveyard smash.”

“No,” Rig says. “The song is about the song Monster Mash, but we don’t actually hear what  _ that _ song is, do we?”

Deacon stops in his tracks and turns to stare at Rig, jaw dropped in shock.

Rig squirms under the stare. “Wh-What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Rigsby... That’s the  _ smartest _ thing I’ve ever heard you say!”

Rig wrinkles his nose. “Your standards are really low... Are we almost there?”

“Yep!” Deacon points up ahead at an abandoned shack in the distance. “Over there. One of my hiding spots on long road trips...”

“...Build it yourself?” Rig asks.

“Nope,” Deacon says. “Found it abandoned, but it’s been a good place to store supplies. Hidden enough that no one else ever comes here. Small, but big enough to fit a mattress, and a nice place to spend the night if you ignore the ominous blood stains on the wall.”

Rig lets go of Deacon’s hand and pulls away. “Oh— Um— Don’t like that...”

“You should still go in and get some rest,” Deacon says. “You shouldn’t be walking so much after getting that cut on your foot.”

“You’re the one who led me here,” Rig points out. “You said we’d be easy targets staying where we were. And it’s already healed. You know this— Stop, just— Stop. This is weird and I don’t like this and I’m too stupid to tell if—”

A crack of thunder in the distance interrupts Rig, and Deacon looks up to see the sky darkening as storm clouds roll in. “We don’t really have a choice,” Deacon says. “Radstorm. We need to get inside before it hits us.”

“...Okay,” Rig says. “Okay.” He reaches for Deacon’s hand before hesitating, but Deacon takes hold of his hand. “Okay,” Rig says a third time, and then again in a mantra as he follows Deacon into the shack. “Okay, okay, okay...”

“Got your needle stuck on your record there, Rigsby?” Deacon asks. He lets go of Rig’s hand and heads over to a lantern and lights it, throwing light and shadows around the walls.

“I’m fine,” Rig says, spying the mattress on the ground wedged between two walls. He drops onto it, pulling his knees up and burying the bottom half of his face in so his sunglasses still peer over the tops of it. “I’m just— Mlobsters... Ghosts... S’all spooky and death-y...”

“...Still wearing those sunglasses, huh?” Deacon asks.

Rig tilts his head up. “...Got ‘em in the Lake House...”

“The same Lake House where you got that cut,” Deacon says. “On some spooky knife. Getting blood in the water around some spooky eldritch sigils...?”

Rig tenses up. “...Yeah?”

“And so there’s a monster out here somewhere now, isn’t there?” Deacon asks. “Just waiting for its chance to strike... One that was summoned because of  _ you.” _

Rig lowers his knees and sits cross-legged. The rain reaches them, pounding on the roof and the world around them. “...You’re not very nice, are you?” he asks.

“I can be nice,” Deacon answers. “But right now, I don’t feel like being a nice guy.”

“Because of a stupid radio broadcast?” Rig asks. “That’s all?”

Deacon scowls. “Because  _ you _ tried to kill us.”

_ “You _ tried to kill  _ me!” _ Rig scowls. “You’re  _ still _ trying to kill me!”

Deacon snorts. “Should have thought of that before you targeted people I care about.”

“So what are you waiting for, then?” Rig demands. “Why drag it out like this? Why lead me here instead of killing me the moment the other two left?”

“Oh, don’t think I didn’t want to.” Deacon crosses his arms. “If I could, I would have. Instead, we’re going to wait, and you’re not going anywhere until all this is done.”

Rig groans. “This is so  _ stupid! _ I hate knowing that I was right about you! I was hoping I was wrong, but you’ve just been so...  _ wrong _ all day!”

“Yeah?” Deacon challenges. “Didn’t think I’d figure you out?”

“I don’t care!” Rig shoves his hands under his sunglasses, pushing them onto his forehead, and over his eyes. “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. Just— Why do you have to drag  _ Deacon _ into this?”

Deacon startles and lowers his arms. “Wait, what?”

Rig spreads his fingers and peeks an eye out. A normal, brown eye, no sign of static. “...What do you mean what...?”

“Rig?” Deacon asks.

“...Deacon?” Rig asks in turn. He lifts the sunglasses out of the way and sets them on top of his head and then points at his eyes. “Are— Are you...?”

Deacon lifts his shades, just long enough to ensure Rig can see his eyes as well. “So you’re  _ not _ possessed?”

“No!” Rig says. “I thought  _ you _ were! You’ve been acting weird all day!”

“I’ve been acting weird because I thought  _ you _ were—” He tilts his head. “Then why did you get huffy about those rhymes I was going to do?”

“Those are my least favorite rhyming combinations,” Rig says. “You  _ know _ I have  _ opinions _ about weird things like that!”

“Oh, damn!” Deacon grins and laughs. “Oh, man, that’s an embarrassing misunderstanding. Well, glad we got that figured out before—”

“Before paranoia got to us and we hurt each other?” Rig asks.

“Pfft, nah, of course not.” Deacon waves off the thought. “We both know you’re a pacifist.”

“...Then before...” Rig looks around and then upward and winced. He points at the ceiling. “Before you lead us to... someplace the monster might be...?”

“Hmm?” Deacon follows Rig’s gaze up, wincing as he sees the name etched in the ceiling. 

ɹO┴ƆIΛ

“You know,” Deacon squeaks. “That explains the bloodstains...”

“...And we’re stuck by the rain,” Rig reminds. “We’re ‘easy targets’ if we wait here.”

_ “You have nowhere to go.” _

“Damn!” Deacon looks around for the source of the voice.

“That’s not Victor,” Rig says. “That’s not Victor’s voice.”

_ “Father did his duty,” _ the voice whispers, circling around the shack as it speaks.  _ “Kept Brother fed until you shot him. Led dreamers to Sister until you burned her. Lured you to the water to release me from hell.” _

Deacon backs away to the middle of the small room, reaching for his gun. “Well, glad to know this Victor is better than a certain other Victor at taking care of his monster children...”

_ “I’ve been waiting all day for you...” _ The voice chuckles, wet and raspy, and Rig shudders in disgust.  _ “You were so  _ **_worried_ ** _ the other would betray you, I’m surprised you didn’t kill each other for me...” _

Deacon watches the shadows around them. “Hell— If you’re going to be playing games, I’d prefer strip poker.”

“Ew, why?” Rig asks. “Keep your clothes on!”

“...Rig.” Deacon turns his head to him, almost smiling. “Really? You—” He freezes. “Rig. Get over here.”

Rig blinks. He looks back and gasps as his shadow, cast on the wall and spilling onto the ceiling twice his full height, opens several dozen “eyes” to stare at him, and grins with sharp teeth like a Cheshire cat. It reaches out of the wall.

“Rig!” Deacon shouts, and Rig remembers how to use his legs and scrambles off the mattress to dive behind Deacon. Deacon shoots the shadow, but it slides out of the way, following Rig’s movements.

“Ahhhhh,” Rig whines quietly, gripping onto Deacon’s shirt. He buries his face in Deacon’s shoulder and Deacon throws an arm out as if to block him.

The monster pulls out of the shadow, filling most of the shack in red eyes, sharp teeth, and unseeable darkness.

“Well, shit,” Deacon utters as he and Rig back into the remaining corner. “I knew this day would come. Eaten by shadow monsters.”

“You  _ knew _ this day would  _ come?” _ Rig asks. He looks up at the monster as it laughs, seemingly waiting for something, some final prize for its torture game before it kills them both. “What— What do you want? What are you waiting for...?”

_ “Your fear and anticipation,” _ the monster utters.  _ “Which of you should I kill first? The one who killed my siblings, or the one so  _ **_hated_ ** _ by my father.” _

“How about neither?” Deacon suggests. “Is neither an option?”

The monster only laughs.

“Riiiight...” Deacon groans. “Thought so.”

Rig groans. “Your father was a stupid man who was killed by his own creation that he made for stupid reasons.”

The monster growls.  _ “How dare you?!” _

“Rig,” Deacon hisses through his teeth. “What are you doing?”

Rig shrugs. “A scorpossum haunting dreams is a really weird idea and makes no sense thematically.”

The monster’s eyes all glow brightly.  _ “WHY WOULD IT HAVE TO MAKE SENSE THEMATICALLY?!” _

_ “Rig,” _ Deacon hisses again, but Rig ignores him.

“You’re just a baby who’s been freshly summoned from  _ my _ blood because of weird siren songs making me go to a lake because Victor was too incompetent to do anything before he died and his house flooded.”

_ “What do you think this will accomplish?” _ the monster demands.  _ “You aren’t getting out of here alive, and I will kill  _ **_you_ ** _ first!” _

“I’m just...” Rig lowers the sunglasses on his head back over his eyes. “Throwing shade,” he says, pointing a finger gun.

Deacon bursts out laughing. “ _ God, _ Rigs, if we die here, I really hope those are your final words. Too bad no one’s around to put it as your epitaph.”

_ “...Okay, I’m done waiting,” _ the monster says.  _ “I’m killing you now.” _

Deacon turns and holds onto Rig as the monster lunges forward. The window of the shack shatters and the monster cries out in pain. Deacon looks up, spying the telltale signs of a bullet wound, and grins.

“Oh,” he says. “So you  _ can _ be shot at when  _ you _ have nowhere else to go.”

_ “No, no, no!” _ the monster insists, shrinking back.

Deacon manages to get a few shots on the monster before it escapes back to the safety of the shadows of the wall, with the walls now bleeding from its wounds.

“Aww, what’s the matter?” Deacon coos. “Sad that the tables have turned? I can wait as long as  _ I _ need to for you to come back out...”

“Deacon?” Rig says. “I— I have an idea.”

“Yeah?” Deacon asks.

“Rain’s stopped quickly,” Rig says. “We can just...” He points to the lantern, still burning nearby.

“...Neat!” Deacon shoots the lantern, throwing fire around, some of which catches onto the monster’s blood and ignites like a trail of gasoline. Rig blocks his face instinctively, accidentally knocking off the sunglasses. Deacon grabs onto Rig’s hand and runs out the door. as the monster cries in pain behind them.

_ “Father!” _ the monster cries out as the shack burns.  _ “Father, help me!” _

Deacon only stops running when Rig lets go of his hand and stops a few paces behind him. Rig bends over, hands on his knees and tries to catch his breath and Deacon watches for anything that might come after them.

“You okay?” Deacon asks.

“Yeah,” Rig says, standing up again. “Are we safe?”

“I think so...” Deacon lets out his breath and then grins and clasps his hands together. “Alright, so it seems that the real monster... was paranoia.”

Rig sends him an incredulous look. “No, the real monster was the thing with the many eyes!” After a beat he adds “And teeth!” One more beat and he adds “That was summoned from the depths of hell!”

“Right,” Deacon nods. “Paranoia. Envy’s a green-eyed monster, and Paranoia is whatever the hell that thing was.”

Rig continues to squint at him in confusion. After a long pause, he finally says “Okay???”

“Hey!” a voice calls, drawing their attention to see Nick waving from the distance. “Are you two okay?”

“Nick! Echo!” Deacon laughs and waves them over. “Glad to see you!”

Nick and Echo hurry over to them, and Echo lightly punches Deacon on the arm.

“I said keep an eye on him, not lead him to the monster,” Echo huffs up. “You’re lucky I could see it through the window.”

“How’d you find us?” Rig asks.

“We got lost looking for Victor’s old haunts,” Nick says. “Happened to be passing by and saw the two of you in trouble.”

“Speaking of Victor...” Echo says. “He  _ was _ haunting Rig. But he can’t do shit now that you’ve killed his three monsters. He’s not a strong enough ghost to stick around without them.”

“Which is why he kept feeding the fog one even after it killed him,” Nick adds. “And led us to the scorpossum and made you summon whatever that other one was. He didn’t want to move on.”

“Mmyep.” Echo nods. “And now it’s over, so we can go home.”

“Really?” Rig looks at Deacon who looks just as uncertain. “It’s— Over? Just like that?”

“Unless you’ve got something else to share,” Echo says.

Rig shakes his head. “No... I think I’m okay.”

“Then it’s over.” She smiles at him. “You don’t have to worry about Victor or his monsters anymore. Let’s get moving and leave all this mess behind us.” She nudges Nick who starts off, leading the way as Echo follows him.

Rig furrows his brow and looks at Deacon again. Deacon smiles at him and offers out a hand. Rig smiles back, accepts, and they walk hand in hand after Echo and Nick...

_...He walks into the living room to see the TV left on and a news station talking about rumors of monsters haunting a nearby town, mentions of a Victor, and other things that blur and fade into obscurity as they disappear from existence. He pays it no mind and continues to the door to answer it. _

_ A man in a dark wide-brim hat with static blocking his face stands on the other side. “oh,” he says. “you again. hmm.” _

_ “...Hi,” he greets. “I’m Apollo. Do you want to come in for tea? I have Earl Grey.” _

_ The man pauses. “milk and sugar, please.” _

_ “Sure thing.” He turns to head back to the kitchen— _

He startles awake at someone shaking his shoulder and looks up to see Deacon smiling at him. “Mrrp?”

“You know I like you right?” Deacon asks.

“Uh...?”

“And that when I say you’re useless or sweaty or whatever I mean that with all the affection I can give?”

“Hnnn?”

“And that I just want to keep you safe and that I’m sorry I thought you were possessed when you clearly weren’t, you were just more affectionate than I was ready to deal with?”

“...Mmuh??”

“Just thought you should know,” Deacon says. He pats Rig’s shoulder again. “Good talk.”

Rig blinks and pats Deacon’s arm until Deacon leans down to let Rig hug him. “You’re good,” he mumbles. “I’m tired. Night.”

“G’night, sleepy beauty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! Thank you for reading!
> 
> Check out [Rigged Games](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687249) for the canon seriesabout Rig, and check out Glowstickia's [Echoes of You](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718185) series for more stories about Echo! Thanks again to Glow for letting me borrow Echo and for providing some of the art for this fic. 👻


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